The question of whether the beard of a Brooklynite denotes a fervently religious Jew or a kale-besotted, workboot-wearing rooftop gardener first gained currency on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” On the show, the late night host asked it of a hirsute man on the street in a tight close-up that gradually widened to reveal whether the interviewee was hipster or chasid.

Most shrugged and concluded that facial hair can be deceptive, but Yuda Schlass mined the joke for a deeper truth. Both, he says, which is the spirit animating his two-month-old “sandwich lab” of almost the same name as Kimmel’s bit.

“Me, myself, as much as I’m chasidic, I’m also hipster,” said Schlass, 30, when The Jewish Week visited the Crown Heights duplex at 881 Eastern Parkway where he lives and operates a sandwich service he’s very careful to call “Hassid+Hipster,” emphasis on the plus sign.

Case in point: Two weeks ago, on the day Tu b’Shevat started, Schlass drew inspiration for his sandwich, the “Tu-bi-banh-mi” from both the tradition of eating the “seven species” of Israel — the fruits and grains named in the Torah — and a Vietnamese pork sandwich. Schlass braised veal belly in beer, brushed the succulent slices with pomegranate and date glaze, added a sprinkle of pickled raisins and citrus oil and piled it all on a baguette layered with smoky fig and eggplant pate.

“Since the end of the summer, I’ve wanted to get back into the creative side of food,” he said, “I was looking to do something that I enjoy and living here in Brooklyn, the food scene in the non-kosher world is amazing. Brooklyn is the Silicon Valley of food.

Schlass cut his teeth in the business by creating, with friends, a health-oriented meal delivery service called the “Fresh Diet,” which started out kosher, but didn’t stay that way as it grew. A home-based business in Miami serving about 70 customers when it started seven years ago, today the Fresh Diet has locations in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles as well and generates more than $25 million in annual revenue.

After several years on the road for the Fresh Diet, Schlass decided to relocate to Crown Heights to be among friends and family. He found Brooklyn’s food scene much to his taste and began to refine his own cooking: rigorously kosher, but influenced more by the borough’s small-batch, locavore ethos than by any Manhattan steakhouse.

Each Hassid+Hipster sandwich costs $15; soup and desserts made by Schlass’ sister are also available. He cooks the food up in a kitchen that’s dairy on one side and meat on the other, and customers pick it up on their lunch breaks or on their way home from work for dinner. His hours are irregular; customers check his Facebook page to ascertain dates and times.    

It’s no coincidence that Schlass’ operation, in name and vibe, resembles “Mason & Mug,” a new kosher small plates place in neighboring Prospect Heights. Mason & Mug likewise started in a private residence. In its first iteration, it was the “Hester,” a supper club hosted by one of the restaurant’s co-owners, Itta Werdiger-Roth, in her Ditmas Park Victorian. Schlass and Werdiger-Roth both also have Chabad roots.

Schlass was born in Jerusalem and raised in the Old City by parents who entertained incessantly in the sprawling, “sure come in” style of the Chabad’s missionaries, even after they were no longer officially affiliated with it.

“Chabad has always been the so-called open-minded chasidic sect,” Schlass said. “The mission is outreach work to other Jews, so you have to know what’s happening, what the trends are.”

He created Hassid+Hipster out of his Eastern Parkway bachelor pad in part to assess whether there’s enough demand in his patch of Brooklyn to open a storefront like Mason & Mug’s. The gourmet Basil Pizza & Wine Bar on Kingston Avenue and Pardes, a French bistro in Downtown Brooklyn, also serve the contemporary kosher crowd.

But this recent interest of the Orthodox in Brooklyn foodways like offbeat ingredients and farmers markets doesn’t make a trend, cautions Moshe Wendel, the classically trained chef at Pardes, whose food both Schlass and Werdiger-Roth cite as an inspiration.

Pardes opened in October, 2010 and he still finds the task of educating the observant palate a bit of a challenge, although it’s gotten easier over time.

“We had people wanting a well-done hamburger. Now they eat steak tartare and organ meats,” he said. “You’re always fighting an uphill battle. You’re feeding people who’ve eaten a yeshiva diet — overcooked hamburgers and pasta — their whole lives.”

Schlass knows restaurants are a famously challenging business with a high failure rate. His father, a former hippie who returned to the faith in the 1970s, once owned a macrobiotic restaurant in downtown Manhattan.

But for now he’s scoping out real estate anyway. He’s also building interest and spreading the word through social media; he uses Instagram and Twitter and posts his calendar and menus on his Facebook page, along with allusions to his inspirations.

The fact that he has no official kosher supervision doesn’t keep him from selling out his sandwich stock. It bothers some of his customers a bit, but those who give it a go anyway conclude that they either know him and trust him, or know enough people who do.

“Uh-oh,” said one such customer, Abe Zuntz, when the subject of supervision came up. He works in Crown Heights in auto leasing and sales and dropped by to pick up Tu-bi-banh-mis for his entire office.

“Most people would prefer it if there were supervision, but they accept it,” Schlass chimed in.

“Most people like it because it’s different,” Zuntz said. “It’s not the sandwich you can get at every sandwich shop. If [Schlass] did it three times a week we’d be here three times a week.”

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