Strictly kosher

NEWTON -- For years it was a fact of life, but to Newton's observant Jews it always seemed so, well, . . . not kosher. If you wanted to have a pastrami sandwich while still observing the Jewish dietary laws, you had to leave one of the great centers of Jewish life in Greater Boston and schlep next door to Brookline.

Until earlier this month, that is, when a 49-year-old Sephardic Jew from Uruguay opened what may be the region's only kosher strip of stores.

Ricardo Bosich moved his Gordon & Alperin kosher butchery across Commonwealth Avenue in Newton Centre into a strip of stores that includes the Bodavi Bakers shop, which is run by his wife, Susan Davis. Bosich, who describes himself as a butcher by trade but a chef at heart, expanded his business into a full-service kosher food center that includes the butcher shop and a grocery store under the Gordon & Alperin name, a catering operation, and a new restaurant, the Avenue Deli.

A visit to the new operation last week turned up an appreciative local clientele. Standing in line for the counter, Newton resident Sam Bergman said he has eaten at the deli a minimum of three times a week since it opened.

"You can go a distance sometimes for it, and you might not even get what you want," the beauty-supply shop owner said of kosher food. "This a very good addition to Newton. This way, you don't have to trek all the way to Brookline and just go to one or two stores."

A further survey of the line also turned up the surprising reverse migration of several customers from Brookline.

"We have to go all the way to New York sometimes, there just aren't that many sit-down places that are kosher," said Adina Silver, a commercial mortgage broker who lives in Brookline and works in Needham. "My sister told me: 'You have to come here, they give you a huge sandwich.' "

At the counter by the window, another Brookline resident, 63-year-old construction company owner Ken Wexler, was eating a cholesterol-friendly turkey sandwich on rye while envying the 2 inches of warm pastrami packed into a bulkie roll on the plate of the patron sitting next to him.

"If I ate that, I would have to take two extra Lipitors," he said, laughing. "But I'll do it anyway one of these days."

Wexler, who grew up in Newton, said he remembers when delis were everywhere. His mother spent so much money at the now-closed Langley Deli a few blocks over, he said, "she put the owner's kids through college all by herself."

There are other delis in and around Newton, including Barry's Deli in Waban, but they are not kosher. Many items that some think of as classic Jewish deli fare -- like a Reuben sandwich, with corned beef and Swiss cheese -- mix meat and dairy products and could never be served at the Avenue. But being kosher also means having high standards in overall cleanliness and in how foods are prepared, stored and treated -- among the reasons that for years many non-Jews concerned about food-borne contamination have religiously bought their meats at Gordon & Alperin.

"I hope they make it," Wexler said of the family business. "It should work, there's definitely a demand. We have all those kosher places in Brookline, there isn't any reason why there shouldn't be some in Newton, too."

If early patron enthusiasm isn't enough, timing may also be on Bosich's side, since his gamble (he said he sank hundreds of thousands of dollars of his retirement savings into the expansion) comes during an era of growth for the Jewish community in Newton Centre.

The area is already home to one of the largest Conservative synagogues in Greater Boston, Temple Emanuel, and both of the Orthodox synagogues in the neighborhood -- Temple Beth El-Atereth Israel and Congregation Shaarei Tefillah -- are expanding their buildings to accommodate growing congregations. The Sephardic Community of Newton, meanwhile, recently acquired its own building in Newton Centre after years of being based at Beth El.

The Avenue's menu has received favorable reviews both for its adventurousness (it includes steak tips with chimichurri sauce and panini sandwiches) and its taste from the Newton-based Kosher Blog and from the Jewish Advocate newspaper, although Bosich's unconventional approach has been a bit of a challenge for the reviewers. Bosich has come up with his own style of smoked corned beef that he plans to substitute for Canadian bacon on an upcoming breakfast menu. Unfortunately, no one on the Jewish Advocate staff had ever tasted Canadian bacon, so they were unable to vouch for the substitute's authenticity.

The expansion has not been without its difficulties. Bosich said a disagreement with his kosher certifiers led to a costly delay while he changed rabbinic supervision to Rabbi Aaron Hamaoui, the leader of the Sephardic Community of Greater Boston. Hamaoui also provides supervision for other popular kosher restaurants in the area, including the new Taam China on Oak Street in Newton Upper Falls, a Chinese steakhouse that opened last year.

It also appears that Bosich is going to have to moderate his ultra-hands-on approach and let his staff take on more of the work. "I usually don't let anyone else work on the grill. I know about meat," he says, dourly recalling an instance a week earlier when a piece of meat wasn't grilled to order.

Last week, when Bosich was called away to the grocery store for a moment, the line at the deli was left to languish.

One patron, after growing tired of waiting, walked out shaking her head.

"Trying to run five businesses at once by himself," she muttered to no one in particular. "Oy."

But Bosich says he can't help wanting to be behind the grill. Beef is a staple of the Uruguayan diet. As a child, he said, his parents gave him a beef bone to suck instead of a pacifier.

Bosich was born in the resort area of Punta del Este to a Sephardic Jewish family in the shoe leather business (another irony not lost on anyone who has ever tasted a badly handled piece of kosher meat). But life under the 12-year military dictatorship that lasted from early 1970s to the mid-'80s was a constant struggle, and he emigrated to the United States in 1984.

He held a variety of jobs, including a stint making airline food in the Marriott-run kitchens at Logan Airport (his crew prepared 3,000 to 4,000 omelets every morning). He later moved on to the kitchen at Boston University's Hillel program, where he learned the ins and outs of kosher cooking from Rabbi Joseph Polak. That led to a job running the kitchen at Camp Tevya, a Jewish camp in Brookline, N.H.

In 1997, he heard through the kosher grape vine that Morris Kessel, the owner of the popular Gordon & Alperin butcher shop in Newton, was looking for help in anticipation of retiring. Impressed by how much Bosich loved the meat business, Kessel offered to sell him the shop a few months later.

Now, even in the frenzy of a new business and the upcoming Passover holiday, Bosich, who lives two blocks behind his stores, said he is still making expansion plans. One idea would be to break down the wall between the bakery service area and the deli and installing a public restroom, which would allow him to add to the deli's 16 seats.

His customers have asked for more places to sit, he said, and he feels he has to pay them back for the years they supported him.

"I'm grateful to this community for making me successful," he said. "And I think they're happy with me, too."

Ralph Ranalli can be reached at rranalli@globe.com.