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July 24, 2009 | 5:03 pm

Los Angeles: BEST DELI TOWN

Posted by Rob Eshman

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"Save the Deli" author David Sax

I just got a peek inside David Sax’s new book, “Save the Deli,“ due out Oct. 19, and can report that it is official: L.A. is the best deli city in America.

Bite that, New York.

Flip to Chapter 10 of Sax’s fanatically researched, snappily-written tome, whose full title is “Save the Deli: In Search of the Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of the Jewish Delicatessen” (Houghton Mifflin). Right there Sax says it:

“Brace yourself New York, because what I am about to write is definitey going to piss a lot of you off, but it needs to be said: Los Angeles has become America’s premier deli city.“

Sax lives in Brooklyn.  He’s traveled the breadth of this country, and to Europe, tasting deli at every stop. He knows what he’s talking about—it’s what WE’VE been talking about for years. In a 2002 cover story on delis in The Jewish Journal, Pulitzer Prize-winning restaurant critic Jonathan Gold told our writer:

I think Los Angeles might be the best deli town in the country right now. I have spent my entire life being sneered at by New Yorkers for living some inferior version of Jewish life here, and then I move to New York and find out that, gosh sakes, it’s right here in Los Angeles.

But, hey, now the world knows.

Sax, who spent a lot of meals out here noshing his way to proof, presents his evidence: Nate ‘n Als, Arts, Canters, Brents, Greenblatt’s, Factors, Juniors and… Langers, home of the finest pastrami sandwich in the universe, much less the country.

And Sax still leaves out Barney Greengrass, Fromins, Izzy’s and Pico Kosher, which ain’t bad (and it’s kosher).  I’d also include the Broadway Deli—an LA-hybrid, to be sure— GotKosher, which, while not an official deli, has quality cured meats, and Jeff’s Kosher Sausage, which actually makes its own pastrami. See, NYC, we have deli to spare.

What has happened, according to Sax, is that while NYC’s delis have become tourist spots and museums, LA’s remain integral to the life and business of the people who live here. He writes:

There has been no grand decline in the L.A. deli scene. Most are packed, sometimes around the clock…The delis out there are bigger, are more comfortable, and ultimately serve better food than any other city in America, including the best pastrami sandwich on earth. Los Angeles is both the exeception to the rule of the deli’s inevitable decline and the example to the rest of the nation of how deli can ultimately stay relevant.

Relevant deli.  Sure, it sounds like the ideal name for a post-modern rock band, but what does “relevant deli” mean?  It means a restaurant that serves the business, social and spiritual needs of the people who live around it. Sax doesn’t go there, but I believe a deli, to be relevant, has to hit all three notes. It has to have the quality and comfort that make it an easy spot to bring the family and do business, and it also has to feel like home, and like the Old Country, whether that old country is real or imagined. That feeling has to come through in the atmosphere, in the clientele, and in the taste.  There is something in nostalgia that feeds the soul—and a good deli supplies it.  And somehow it bwas nostalgia, the yearning for the past, that ensured LA’s deli future: All those ex-pat New York writers, agents and producers taking meetings over lox and onions actually turned LA into into a better deli city than the place they were trying to recreate.

The Journal will have more closer to pub date, and you can read more about Sax and his book at his web site.

Let me just take a second to say this again, though:

Bite that, New York.

MORE ONLINE:

To read about Langer’s in our cover story by Joan Nathan, click here.

To see a video on “A Day at Canters,“ click here.

For our October 3, 2002 interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning restaurant critic Jonathan Gold in which he says, “I think Los Angeles might be the best deli town in the country right now,“  click here.

For my piece on Jonathan Gold, click here.

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And everybody thinks New Yorkers move here for the weather.

Comment by doranb on 7/24/09 at 7:07 pm

It seems to me that the delis are the REAL holy places.  May Mr. God protect them.

One thing, it’s “the life-giving Pastrami”.  It is the delis that make the drive down to LA tolerable.

Comment by Pete on 7/25/09 at 1:39 pm

I would NEVER include Canters in a list of best delis.  Food quality is highly variable and service even more so in addition to being overpriced.  Only if you’re starving.

Comment by Akiba on 7/26/09 at 2:21 am

Sax left out Brents Deli in Northridge.  Probably the best deli in L. A.  But maybe he has only been associating with Westsiders who do not believe that anything meaningful exists in the San Fernando Valley.

Comment by Bernie on 7/31/09 at 10:14 am

Bernie:  Sax writes about Brents on page 138. Page and a half….he goes on and on about their kishke. “a greasy tube of goodness that crackled when I sliced it.” Ahhh, kishke…...

Comment by Rob Eshman on 8/03/09 at 4:59 pm

I agree. Canter’s bakery is good; their food is poor, and the wait stzff don’t know what they were doing. My wife ordered kasha varnishkes (on the menu) and the waitress said, “what’s that?” It wssn’t very good when it came. Same for Jerry’s; the food is mediocre.

Spot on about Langers, Brents, Nate n’Als. and Junior’s is ok except for the breakfast special, which is terrific.

You might want to do a follow-up on bagels. Most store bagels are foul. Many aren’t even true bagels, but soft bread dough donuts. Bagel Factory has the real thing, and rivals H&H in Manhattan; the gold standard. By the way, to taste that gold standard, Barney Greengrass has them. Western Bagel and the Brooklyn Bagel Bakery, though of high word of mouth, are poor imitations of the best bagels. Aqs for Bialys, Back East and Western Bialy haas them, but they are thin, emaciated versinns of the best Bialys.

Finally, I turn to Lox. The best Lox in the city (pace Barney Greengrass) is at Costco, raised in Norway and smoked in Holland, and is about 1/3 the price of the fancy lox/smoked salmon/norwegian and scottish smoked salmon sold in upscale places. Mass produced supermarket lox (Lassco, Vita) is, of course, an abomination laden with nitrites and oil0-soaked.

Comment by Commentator on 8/31/09 at 7:01 am

While om here talking about Jewish food, let me turn to cheesecake. I ate the originals at both Turf and Lindy’s on Broadway in the 1950’s. Most cheesecakes are far from that gold standard. (Turf, whose recipe is secret, is still available by mail on the Internet—check Google.). The real recipe has NO sour cream, NO cheese except Philadelphia Cream Cheese, and the closest recipe to the real thing was published many years ago in the New York Times Cookbook. Though more recent editions have the “wrong” recipe, the NYT International Cookbook still has the right one, as does “The World’s Best Recipes” by Marvin Small, and Joan Nathan (Jewish Cooking in America) under the rubric “Lindy’s, or is it Reuben’s Cheesecake”. Most Angelinos are used to Cheesecake Factory which, though tasty in its own right, is also definitely the “wrong” recipe.

I write as one raised in Manhattan;s Lower East Side and in Crown Heights, Brooklyn when Egg Creams and Charlotte Russes were available at every street-corner soda fountain and nearly every corner deli knew what real Pastrami was—the 1930s and 1940s.

Comment by Commentator on 8/31/09 at 7:15 am

The thing about Costco lox is that we’ve found it to be extremely salty, which makes it essentially inedible.

What about egg bread?  Where’s a good place to get that?

Comment by Pete on 8/31/09 at 11:24 am

If Sax was doing His homework He would have included Labels Table Deli, on Pico in the mist of all the best Jewish Food and one in Northridge too.  Maybe He missed it but Labels is the best value iown and the freshest rye ever.

Comment by SHELLY BALLOON on 9/09/09 at 6:40 pm

Where does one find a “real bialy” in Los Angeles (NY style). Ordered from NY and they were lousy! If not LA where in NY supplies a real bialy?

Comment by claire on 9/14/09 at 6:14 pm

Kossar’s is reputed to have the best Bialys in NYC

Comment by Commentator on 9/14/09 at 6:23 pm

Try Bueller’s on Olympic & Westwood.  Rivals any bialys from NY.

Comment by Saundra Gass on 9/17/09 at 10:38 am

Bialys are a varied lot. I love the ones from Slim’s Bagels in Queens, I’m lukewarm on the ones from my favorite bagel place, Tal Bagels in Manhattan.

In LA I like the bialys at the NY Bagel Bistro on Woodman and Moorpark in Studio City. They’re more like a pletzel, technically, but nothing bad about that. (Note: I notice the “bagel” has disappeared from their sign, but I don’t know if that means the actual bagels and bialys have disappeared. Hope not.)

And on another topic, how can Jerry’s call itself a deli and not have kasha varnishkes on the menu?

Comment by Laura on 10/14/09 at 4:53 pm

Langer’s is definitely my favorite so far!

Comment by essential oil blends on 1/21/10 at 2:36 am

I love the idea that a lot of delis are still thriving and serving authentic Jewish deli food. Owning a Fort Lauderdale catering business, I can understand that the food industry is tough and there have been deli places in my neighborhood. There’s something so nostalgic about eating in a traditional deli. Whenever I enter one it still makes me feel like home.

Comment by towerdeli on 12/02/10 at 2:10 am

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