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Lehrhaus Featured in Resy’s 2025 Cocktail Guide: A Toast to Innovation and Jewish Storytelling in Every Glass

We’re honored that Lehrhaus has been named among Resy’s “40 Places to Drink Right Now,” celebrating bars redefining cocktail culture across America.

At Lehrhaus, our Jewish tavern and house of learning in Somerville, MA, every drink tells a story, from our Rooted Cosmopolitan (corn-husk vodka and all) to the Tree of Knowledge spirit-free mixed drink. As Resy highlights, this year’s best bars embrace creativity, inclusivity, and narrative, offering cocktails that are as thoughtful as they are delicious.

Lehrhaus stands proudly among them, Jewish stories and spirits in equal measure. Each cocktail draws from Jewish texts, history, and the global diaspora — transforming your drink into a doorway to learning and conversation.

Whether you come for the Arak Spritz, stay for a class in our beit midrash, or gather with friends over mezze and midrash, Lehrhaus invites you to experience what Resy calls the “most varied and delicious set of drinking choices ever.”

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Charlie Schwartz Charlie Schwartz

Lehrhaus on The Sporkful: When a Jewish Tavern Becomes a National Conversation

We’ve been called a lot of things — a tavern, a beit midrash, a restaurant, a social experiment — but now we can officially add Sporkful guest to the list.

Earlier this month, Dan Pashman, host of the James Beard Award-winning food podcast The Sporkful, came to Somerville to see what Lehrhaus is all about. The result? A full episode titled “What’s a Jewish Tavern and House of Learning?” — part field trip, part philosophy class, part dinner party.

In the episode, Dan explores how Lehrhaus blends Jewish learning, hospitality, and food culture into one experience. He walks through our dining room, peeks into the beit midrash (our house of study), and meets some of the people who’ve helped make Lehrhaus what it is today.

You’ll hear stories about:

  • The “magical Jewish objects” that fill our space — from antique ritual items to pop-culture treasures

  • How our menu reads like a page of Talmud, with dishes that trace the Jewish journey from Baghdad to Boston

  • Why we believe a tavern can be a place of meaning and conversation, not just a place to eat

Dan also sits down with our founders to talk about the big question that drives us: What does it look like when Jewish life is built around joy, curiosity, and connection?

Being featured on The Sporkful isn’t just exciting, it’s meaningful. The show reaches a national audience of food lovers, curious minds, and seekers. Hearing Lehrhaus described as “a tavern that feeds both the body and the soul” captures exactly what we’ve been trying to create here in Boston.

It also means that people far beyond New England are now discovering that a Jewish tavern is more than a restaurant — it’s a place where ideas are on the menu, too.

🎧 Listen to The Sporkful episode here.
📍 Then come by Lehrhaus — grab dinner, stay for a class, or just have a drink and explore what a Jewish tavern and house of learning feels like in person. We’re open in Somerville, MA, serving delicious Jewish food, great drinks, amazing classes and good conversation.

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Charlie Schwartz Charlie Schwartz

Meet Edgar the Hoopoe

Meet our new mural, Edgar the Hoopoe. The hoopoe, the colorful migratory bird featured in the new Lehrhaus mural by local artist Chloe Rubinstein, has deep roots in Jewish and global storytelling. Known in Jewish tradition as the guardian of the Shamir—the mythical creature said to carve the stones of the Temple without tools of war—and celebrated in Farid ud-Din Attar’s Sufi classic The Conference of the Birds as the flock’s spiritual guide, the hoopoe embodies migration, wisdom, and transformation. Its presence at Lehrhaus reflects the spirit of a community always in motion, connecting ancient ideas with new expressions of art, culture, and conversation.

You might notice a new addition to our backyard, a mural of a hoopoe. Why a Hoopoe? The hoopoe is a migratory bird long associated with the land of Israel — some imagine it as the bird visiting Bialik in his poem To the Bird — and with regions central to the Jewish diaspora. A bird that travels throughout the Jewish world felt right for the Lehrhaus mural. In Jewish legend, the hoopoe is said to have guarded the Shamir, a mythical worm used to split the stones of the Temple so that no tools of war would be needed in its construction.

The bird also appears far beyond Jewish tradition. In Farid ud-Din Attar’s 12th-century Sufi masterpiece The Conference of the Birds, the hoopoe is the wise guide leading the flock on their search for truth. That mix of migration, myth, and meaning makes the hoopoe a fitting presence for Lehrhaus—a place where ideas, traditions, and people are constantly in motion. Also, who doesn’t love a bird with a mohawk!?

The mural, created by local artist Chloe Rubinstein, captures that spirit in vivid color. Learn more about the hoopoe’s role in Jewish tradition and Sufi literature, or stop by Lehrhaus to see Chloe’s mural and meet the bird yourself.

We’re not 100% sure what we’ll end up calling our hoopoe friend, but for now we're calling it Edgar.

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Charlie Schwartz Charlie Schwartz

Lehrhaus Named One of America’s Best New Restaurants

Lehrhaus named one of the best new restaurants in America.

We’re thrilled to announce that Lehrhaus has been named one of Esquire Magazine’s list of Best New American Restaurants, the first time a kosher restaurant has been on the list in it’s 41 year history! Mazel tov to the whole team on this amazing accomplishment! You can read the Lehrhaus entry and the see the entire list here.

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