Buba Bureka’s latest trick is the bureka stick

Buba Bureka has spent the past year proving to the masses that burekas should be bigger. Now, the delicious downtown spot is arguing that the treats should also be longer.

The Greenwich Village bureka shop has introduced bureka sticks, a new format for the Israeli pastry that is the entire point of the tiny shop at 193 Bleecker Street.

If you’ve been to Buba, you know that restraint has always been part of the appeal. Chef Ben Siman-Tov, better known online as BenGingi, opened the shop in spring 2025 with a deliberately tiny menu devoted entirely to burekas. The originals are considerably larger than the standard Israeli versions, baked throughout the day and served with the proper supporting cast: crushed tomato, tahini, spicy schug, salt-brined pickles and a jammy egg.

The sticks take that same bureka obsession and put it into a more snackable shape. Called the bubaton, the new 16-inch stick is inspired by the French baguette and comes in different flavors: miso corn with a honey-gochujang dip, kimchi cheddar with a honey-gochujang dip, pizza with ranch dip and caramel apple with caramel dip. All the dips will be served on the side of the $12 orders, which will change seasonally.

The Buba Bureka team revealed the product’s origin story in a recent Instagram post, describing an older woman who stopped by the store with a beautiful Gucci bag. “I had a little vision, a reverie,” explains co-founder Fritz Oleshansky in the upload. “While she was still here we made a quick little bureka stick. When it came out, we wrapped it real tight, she loved it and she put it right into her fancy Gucci bag.” The name? A play on the shoes that the woman was wearing: Louboutins.

It is an interesting move for a shop whose original calling card was essentially the XXL-ification of a food Israelis normally eat on the run: Buba is now playing with the shape of the bureka rather than simply its filling.

And there has been plenty of playing lately.

The current regular menu includes cheese, potato-leek, spinach-artichoke and roasted mushroom burekas, plus a smaller shakshuka version filled with tomato sauce and a jammy egg. The cheese bureka is filled with Gouda, feta and ricotta, while the mushroom version combines roasted mushrooms with mascarpone and oregano.

Buba has also become increasingly fond of limited editions. Earlier this month, it offered an apples-and-honey bureka for Rosh Hashanah, served with fresh apples, whipped honey and sour cream. Earlier in the year came the shakshuka bureka, following previous experiments including a kimchi melt collaboration with Lower East Side Korean restaurant Kisa.

The biggest change for kosher diners, though, happened in February, when Buba Bureka became officially kosher certified under IKC. The certification covers the menu at the Bleecker Street shop.

One more update: teh shop is now open during weekend evenings as well.

Buba could easily have responded to its early success by turning into a full Israeli café. So far, it has resisted. There are still no sprawling brunch menus or obligatory avocado toast situations. Instead, the shop keeps finding new things to do with the one food it opened to sell.

Including, now, making it into a stick.