Albert Allaham turned a Syrian butcher trade into Reserve Cut, a $10 million kosher steakhouse near Wall Street, with expansion now eyed for Tel Aviv.
Albert Allaham owns Reserve Cut, a 278-seat kosher steakhouse in Manhattan's Financial District that reported roughly $10 million in sales by 2016, three years after opening. Allaham descends from four generations of Damascus butchers and built the restaurant on the premise that kosher steak could compete with any non-kosher counterpart in New York. He is now weighing expansion into Tel Aviv, Miami, and Chicago.
Who Is Albert Allaham?
Albert Allaham is a Syrian-born butcher and restaurateur who opened Reserve Cut in 2013 inside The Setai Wall Street. He left Damascus for New York in 1999 at age 12 or 13, depending on the account, joining an older brother already settled in Brooklyn. His family had worked as butchers in Damascus for more than 200 years, and the Allaham surname itself translates to "butcher" in Arabic.
Allaham entered the meat trade immediately after high school. He and his brothers opened their first butcher shop in 2004, then expanded in 2007 with Prime Cut, a retail meat market on Avenue U in Brooklyn that still operates today. His father, Mourad Allaham, continues to select and ship the steaks Reserve Cut serves, maintaining a direct supply line between the family's butcher business and its restaurant.
How Did Reserve Cut Become a $10 Million Steakhouse?
Reserve Cut opened in 2013 after Allaham spent years unable to find a kosher steak in New York City that matched the quality of the city's top non-kosher steakhouses. The restaurant occupies 15,000 square feet with 278 seats, and by 2016, three years after opening, it had generated approximately $10 million in sales, according to FSR Magazine's reporting on the business.
Allaham split his working days between the two sides of the operation. He butchered steaks in the kitchen during the day, sourcing and aging the meat the restaurant would serve that night, then changed into a suit to greet guests in the dining room. The restaurant sells upward of 250 steaks nightly, sourced through the family's existing butcher supply chain rather than a third-party distributor.
Why Does Reserve Cut Attract a Non-Kosher Customer Base?
Reserve Cut markets itself as a steakhouse first and a kosher restaurant second, a positioning choice Allaham made deliberately when the restaurant opened. "I wanted to have one of the best steaks in the city, not one of the best kosher steaks in the city," Allaham told the Forward in 2018.
That approach has drawn a customer base that extends well beyond observant diners. Reported patrons have included Sara Netanyahu, television personality Jonathan Cheban, Fox News anchor Peter Hegseth, and Tiffany Trump. The restaurant does not prominently advertise its kosher certification on its social media accounts, a choice Allaham has said is intentional. The strategy mirrors how other Jewish-owned American businesses, such as B&H Photo's Hasidic ownership, compete on mainstream merit rather than religious branding.
What Comes Next for Reserve Cut?
Allaham has said he is considering international expansion, with Miami, Chicago, and Tel Aviv named as target markets. He has also discussed a multi-restaurant concept in which chefs from several locations rotate and collaborate on seasonal tasting menus, though no firm opening dates have been announced for any new location.
The restaurant has also begun work on a second New York property, Reserve Cut on Park, continuing the model of pairing Allaham's butchering background with a formal dining room. Any Tel Aviv location would mark the brand's first venture into the Israeli market, aligning a New York-built kosher fine-dining concept with the country where its kashrut standards originate. Future entries in The Kosher Economy series will track additional kosher hospitality founders building similar cross-border ventures.
Sources
- The Forward, "The Secrets of Reserve Cut's Albert Allaham," October 17, 2018
- FSR Magazine, "The Man Behind NYC's $10M Kosher Steakhouse"
- Authority Magazine (Medium), "Albert Allaham of Reserve Cut: 5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand," October 14, 2024
- Downtown Magazine, "Reserve Cut owner Albert Allaham on running Downtown Manhattan's only kosher steakhouse," July 13, 2016
- Reserve Cut official site, team member and about pages