90 DECEMBER 2019
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The Deli Ain’t Dead Delicatessen culture
keeps evolving in new and delicious ways. Here are
the stalwarts and the upstarts worth traveling for.
By David Landsel
E’VE BEEN HEARING ABOUT the decline of the
deli for the longest time. About how we’re
losing too many of our originals and how
too many people are turning away from the
delicatessen’s simple pleasures. Many folks
are bumming hard that so many of the greats are gone, like
New York’s legendary Carnegie Deli and Ben’s Best across the
East River in Queens, Wolfie Cohen’s Rascal House in South
Florida, not to mention the news earlier this year that Nate’n
Al in Beverly Hills had closed, if only temporarily.
While losing a classic is a sad thing, if we set aside the obses-
sion with Jewish deli culture needing to exist within a certain
kind of framework, and we take a look around and see how
things are changing, possibly for the better, it is difficult to not
feel the tiniest bit of excitement.
A new generation of pastrami kings are taking the protein
beyond the deli, like the exemplary Ugly Drum in Los Angeles,
W
which has proved that you don’t even need a roof or walls to
become a favored barbecue destination. There are other encour-
aging trends, too: Montreal deli culture has successfully found a
footing south of the border, while in the Midwest, thanks in part
to a resurgence in interest in classic Detroit food traditions, some
of the old corned beef haunts are—happily—back on the grid.
Then, of course, you have all of the modern delis, a trend
that shows no sign of slowing. So what if the new arrivals don’t
always adhere to certain expectations? So what if they’re taking
liberties, serving things you have a snowball’s chance in hell
of finding on the menu at the old-school holdouts, like bacon
(gasp!) or kimchi (the audacity!)?
What matters is this: The deli is not dead. It’s alive, it’s evolv-
ing, and it’s growing, right alongside the rest of American food
culture. As long as there’s pastrami or corned beef on the menu,
maybe a little chopped liver, and definitely some good pickles,
we’re into it, and we’re there.
clockwise from
left: Matzo ball
soup at Perly’s in
Richmond, Virginia;
rugelach at The
General Muir in
Atlanta; Liebman’s
Deli in the Bronx
ROAD TRIP
PHOTOGRAPHY (CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT): FRED+ELLIOTT, ANDREW THOMAS LEE, ED NEWMAN
