On Tuesday night, at a party on West 34th Street in Manhattan, guests shimmied up to an icy display of fresh herring. Some reached for a fork, but the purists held their catch by the tail, tipped their heads back, and lowered the fish right into their mouths.
After six long years, the Russ & Daughters Herring Pairing party was back, this time at the store’s newest location, which opened in Hudson Yards in 2023.
“I could eat this herring all day,” said Jerry Richter, 64, who had come in from West Hempstead, Long Island.
Mr. Richter, a public-school teacher and veteran of the Herring Pairing party, got hooked on herring “at the tender age of 4” and has been eating herring around the world ever since.
But for the moment, nothing could beat New York. “I have been waiting for tonight for too long,” he said.
This celebration of all things herring signified the return, after a pandemic-induced hiatus, of what had become an annual rite for Russ & Daughters, the city’s pre-eminent keeper of age-old Jewish appetizing traditions. The party is a more modern tradition, with its elevated fish preparations and sophisticated drink pairings (among them a 2022 Muscadet and a vividly magenta concoction called the Beet and Lemon Shrub). But as New York summer food rituals go, it’s as beloved as the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest — only with way more omega-3s.
Under the pink glow of the neon Russ & Daughters sign, the herring faithful congregated around the spread, which resembled a Michelin-starred tasting menu sprung from the Lower East Side circa 1900. There was Scandinavian-style mustard and dill herring on crisp bread, paired with everything bagel-flavored aquavit; curried herring with Medjool dates and roasted cashews, served with a blond ale; towers of pickled herring with pickled onions and cream sauce, served daintily on slices of Baltic rye; and herring ceviche (recommended accompaniment: a tequila and mezcal cocktail called the Heads and Tails).
But for connoisseurs, this night was about one fish in particular, the event’s raison d’être: the New Catch Holland herring, or Hollandse Nieuwe, which Russ & Daughters imports directly from the Netherlands during the fleeting stretch of summer when they’re caught in the North Sea.
“This is like the toro of herring,” said Niki Russ Federman, the fourth-generation co-owner of Russ & Daughters (along with her cousin Josh Russ Tupper). “It has this delicate butteriness. It’s herring in its purest form.”
And, she added, “it’s not everyday you have license to eat food like a seal.”
In Holland, the fish — traditionally served raw and garnished with chopped onion and cornichon — has its own national holiday. Vlaggetjesdag (“Flag Day”) heralds the arrival of the first New Catch of the season, which typically runs from mid-May to July, when the herring are at their peak omega-3 fat content. (And, according to Ms. Russ Federman, at their “most delicious.”)
And now, 400 years after the Dutch founded New Amsterdam, that custom is once again going strong on both sides of the Atlantic.
“You don’t posture when you come to the herring party,” said David Sable, 71, an advertising executive from New York who’s been coming to the Herring Pairing since its first iteration 16 years ago. “It’s not like a party in SoHo. This is freakin’ haimish.”
For one first-timer, the party was a pilgrimage years in the making.
Holding a plate of New Catch, Brandon Dang, 30, texted his father, “Finally got the New Holland herring!”
Mr. Dang, a senior radiology resident from Houston now living in New York, had to swap shifts with junior residents to attend the party. But the stress of residency seemed miles away as Mr. Dang, who is Vietnamese, described the satisfaction of his first bite.
“The fattiness is something you never get from a fish sauce,” he said.
For Andy Nyman, 59, the party involved a different sort of pilgrimage. The British actor, who played Tevye in a recent West End production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” flew in from London for four days with his 31-year-old daughter, Macy — specifically for the Herring Pairing.
“Walking into Russ & Daughters,” said Mr. Nyman, “which is both a thriving, modern, growing business and has both its feet planted in the sawdust of its ancestors — it’s the most empowering feeling.”
That business began over a century ago on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, when Joel Russ, who immigrated to the United States in 1907 from a shtetl in today’s Poland, began selling schmaltz herring out of a barrel to other Eastern European immigrants.
“It was a very cheap form of sustenance,” Ms. Russ Federman said. A family could feed itself for two meals on one fish, first soaking up its oils with a piece of bread, and then later eating the fish itself.
Four generations later, the humble herring has swum uptown — and upmarket, if only for the evening. Tickets for the party, all herring and “aquatinis” included, cost $125. Tuesday’s herring fest was the first of two this summer — a second party will be held on July 29, back in the old country at Russ & Daughters Cafe on Orchard Street.
While the Herring Pairing has grown into a New York tradition, the first one, in 2009, was actually intended to be a one-off. That is until Oliver Sacks, the neurologist, writer and smoked fish superfan who died in 2015 (and who arrived at the inaugural party in head-to-toe Russ & Daughters attire), lyrically described the event in a New Yorker essay a few weeks later — and alluded to “counting down the days” to next year’s party.
“Wait a second, we have to do this again?” Ms. Russ Federman recalled thinking.
Sixteen years later, the fish fans were glad they did.
“I haven’t missed a party,” said Charlie Sosnick, 67, a lawyer from Woodmere, Long Island. This year, he came with his son and son-in-law in tow. “Herring,” he said, “it’s a bonding thing.”
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