Desperately Seeking Burek
On an early January day, I found myself wandering the frozen streets of Sarajevo. The Balkans are not a top winter travel destination for most people, and yet that’s where I ended up, on a solitary research trip, and momentarily in search of a savory pastry I’d become obsessed with only a year before.
A small shop just off the old square was filled with locals on their lunch breaks, their breath and the oven’s heat steaming up the windows. I stepped inside to survey trays of puffed pastry, each hiding a different filling, each equally enticing. I’d found my destination. I went nontraditional, and chose krompirusa, with a potato filling.
“With yogurt?” I was asked in Bosnian.
“Da.” Always, yes.
Sitting down to a low wooden table, I sat elbow to elbow with my fellow diners to silently indulge in this flaky pie I’d seemingly traveled 3,000 miles to eat.
The crispy exterior gave way under fork and knife to reveal lightly chewy and only slightly oily interior layers of dough rolled around a potato filling. The tangy yogurt topping balanced the flavor. It was delicious and familiar in the way only comfort food can be; it brought me back to the first time I’d tasted burek on the streets of Belgrade. I’d spent five months the previous year studying there, and in this time the Balkans had become a second home.
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It was an unusually warm spring day when I popped into a bakery my host family had been telling me about. When my time to order came, I squeezed inside the tiny space and was greeted by a counter overflowing with piles of pastries. In a rush of a language I barely understood at that point, my senses overwhelmed, I made a quick decision to order the one thing I’d heard of: burek sa sirnica.
A large slice of cheese pie was cut from a round metal tray and handed to me wrapped in oil-soaked paper. A hefty amount of crumbly cheese, similar to ricotta, was held together by layers of dough that were crispy and blistered on the outside and tender on the inside.
This burek resembled a pie with a top and bottom crust, a variation on the rolls of flaky dough in Bosnia. Its warmth in my hand, I found a bench nearby. The next several minutes were spent trying to savor every last bite while simultaneously succumbing to the urge to stuff the whole thing in my mouth.
I was hooked, and I’ve spent the years since trying to repeat this experience. Perhaps it’s because of its similarity to other cheesy, greasy pies like pizza, but this simple dough filled with ground meat or cheese quickly became a comforting food for me when I was in a place that felt nowhere like home.
When I moved to New York City, a year after that snowy day in Sarajevo, a Bosnian friend told me about a restaurant in Astoria where you could find burek just like they made back in his home.
This time I didn’t need my passport; I made my way to a little restaurant called Djerdan, on a residential strip of 31st Avenue.
Bosnians are quick to tell you that burek only comes with one filling: ground meat. Any other filling denotes a different name, specific to what’s inside, as my krompirusa from before was really a pie filled with potato. Yet in Serbia, they call anything that looks like a burek by one name and just add on the filling at the end: burek with cheese, burek with meat, burek with spinach. Burek is a remnant of the Ottoman Empire’s long occupation of the Balkans. You can find similar pastries, both in name and ingredients, throughout Eastern Europe. Turkish bourekas—triangles of flaky dough—are a perfect size to hold in your hand and snack on. While I’ve tried a dozen of these varieties, both in Europe and across Queens, none have held up (for me) against the perfect flake and flavor of the burek.
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Djerdan is not the only restaurant in Queens that makes burek, but they’ve perfected the art. It is an art form—one that for something with a surprisingly scarce amount of ingredients and that is so ubiquitous across the Balkans, is deceptively difficult to master.
“I’ve tried to make it at home, but it’s never the same,” says Sabina Smailovic, the manager at Djerdan’s Astoria location. She came to New York City from Montenegro eight years ago, and now feels at home in this little shop where she’s worked ever since. She, too, is obsessed with finding the flavor that transports her home to the Balkans, but her endeavors include trying to create burek in her own home.
“You mix flour and water and salt, and you do it by your hands,” she explains to me, motioning as if she is lightly mixing the dough with her fingers. “And then it stays a little like that.”
After the dough rests, you add oil and then stretch the dough out by hand into impossibly thin layers. The layers of dough are stuffed with fillings ranging from cheese to ground beef to potato or spinach.
“We make real things [at Djerdan], like I make back home—like our moms, like they make,” she says, smiling. “...People come just because of food, because it’s something they had back home. It’s nice when you hear your language, just to remember your culture, not to forget what we have back home.”
Sitting at one of the small metal tables sipping Turkish coffee and hearing her native language spoken is comforting for Smailovic.
“All burek is the same,” Smailovic says matter-of-factly, when I ask if different varieties are being made at burek shops across Queens. “Doesn’t matter if it’s from Bosnia or Serbia or Montenegro, it’s the same thing.”
Bosnian pop music blasting from the TV, I sit down, and Smailovic serves me a plate of burek nearly the size of my head. It’s what I’ve been seeking: the perfect combination of flake and flavor, simultaneously transporting me back to the sunny park benches of Bosnia and the snowy streets of Sarajevo.
Where to find some of the best burek in Queens
Djerdan
Djerdan serves a variety of Balkan dishes alongside their burek, and Balkan beer to go along with it. Plus, their yogurt is homemade!
Ukus
Just down the street from Djerdan is Ukus, which dishes up burek that’s just as tasty, but more local and where English is a bit less common.
Burek’s Pizza
Head over to Ridgewood and you can find a burek-only menu at the Montenegrin owned Burek’s Pizza that won’t disappoint.
Bosna Express & Parrot Coffee Grocery
You can find any other Bosnian street food just a few minutes away at Bosna Express, or pick up ingredients to make your own from Parrot Coffee Grocery.
Djerdan Burek | @djerdan_burek
Ukus
Burek’s Pizza
Bosna Express | @bosna_express
Parrot Coffee Grocery
