Just because the pandemic means you’re not partying this New Year’s Eve at some big soiree doesn’t mean your send-off to one of the strangest years in living memory shouldn’t be a decadent night to remember. So when celebrating with your immediate family or Covid-19 bubble, you need to go all out. This December 31 requires great caviar. So we called on Josh Russ Tupper, the fourth-generation co-owner of New York institution Russ & Daughters to discuss the luxurious world of cured fish eggs.
Russ & Daughters dates back to 1914, when it first opened as a little shop on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side. It moved to Houston Street in 1920 and has remained there for a century, selling some of the finest cured and smoked fish in the city. It also specializes in caviar, offering top-notch osetra, Siberian baerii, American transmontanus and more. Even better, Russ & Daughters offers nationwide shipping for its caviar, cured fish, bagels, babka and more. And if you order soon, you can guarantee you’ll have it in time for New Year’s Eve.
On this episode of Robb Report Culinary School, Tupper joins culinary editor Jeremy Repanich to discuss different types of caviar, the tell-tale signs of quality, why blinis and creme fraiche are excellent accoutrements and why Ketel One is an idea beverage pairing. How will Tupper spend the night? Well, instead of the little blinis you can buy from Russ & Daughters, he’ll take a tin of caviar upstate with his wife, make a giant crepe and create the most envy-inducing burrito you’ll ever find.
Odds and Ends and Additional Links
- Russ & Daughters sells caviar a la carte, but also offers packages like the American Caviar Gift Set, which includes blinis, creme fraiche and a mother of pearl spoon.
- For New Yorkers, Russ & Daughters is offering caviar and Champagne packages for pick-up and delivery.
- Tupper and his cousin and Russ & Daughter’s co-owner Niki Russ Federman have been heavily involved in the Independent Restaurant Coalitions’s efforts to lobby for relief from Congress for the industry, which has been greatly impacted by the pandemic. You can voice your support for the Restaurants Act here.
- Those efforts included partnering with Jake Gyllenhaal for a limited-edition Russ & Daughter’s T-shirt you can buy as part of the restaurant’s IRC fundraiser.
- You can follow the New York institution Instagram @russanddaughters.
- Head to Robb Report’s Instagram page to check out more episodes of Culinary School, including Top Chef winner Mei Lin’s congee and James Beard Award-winner Chris Shepherd’s recipe for bacon chile jam.
