Hey, Boca, there’s a new cheesecake in town
Buckle up, Boca. There’s a new cheesecake in town – and we’re not talking about Junior’s.
Amazing as it is, Junior’s flfluffffffffffffy, cake-crust, New York cheesecake met its match on Tuesday, when Rappy’s Deli opened at Boca Raton’s new Park Place plaza.
We had a taste of the desser t at a recent preview lunch. Restaurateur Burt Rapoport, who created the Rappy’s concept as a tribute to his late grandfather’s New York Jewish deli, offffffffffffered the cheesecake without much commentary at the end of a multi-dish lunch.
The cheesecake recipe was brought to Rapoport’s, his grandfather’s lower east Manhattan deli, by a Swedish pastry chef. It was the fifirst cheesecake served in New York, says Rapoport, who grew up in an apartment above that long-closed deli.
The cheesecake: a flfluffffffffffffy, cream-cheese intense fifilling atop a thin cake crust. It’s divine stuffffffffffff.
Rapoport is not making a big deal of it.
“When something’s good, people will fifind it,” he says.
The rest of the menu is just as rooted in the New York deli concept, but presented with a modern spin. A Reuben is turned into a spring roll for Rappy’s Pastrami Spring Roll appetizer, which is stuffffffffffffed with caraway-scented braised cabbage, Gruyère and Thousand Island dressing.
Don’t fret , traditionalists, there’s a classic Reuben as well.
As delicious as the cheesecake: Rappy’s classic pastrami, to be made in-house. The meat is brined, smoked over a mix of hardwood, then steamed.
The result is layer upon layer of flavor, a stack of pastrami that needs only a couple slices of rye bread and a smear of coarse-grain mustard. There are healthy offerings: chicken soup, health slaw, veggies.
The menu is extensive, with offerings for break- fast , brunch, lunch and dinner: caviar, shareable “noshes,” soups, entrée salads, large plates, blintzes and latkes, a mountain of hot/cold sandwich options, dogs and wursts (hello, pastrami-wrapped dog!), burgers and melts, Reubens and Rachels, “Bubby’s chicken in a pot,” shakes and desserts, plus a full bar.