Ed Levine's New York Eats - edlevineeats.seriouseats.com

In Indy the best place is definitely Shapiro's. Mel and Herb Simon (the shopping mall guys, owners of the Indiana Pacers) are Brooklyn natives and they swear it's as good as anyplace in NY. The corned beef is as good as any I've ever eaten, but it's missing some of the 'ambiance' of my favorites in NY.

Katz's is my gold standard for pastrami, although I'm thrilled that 2nd Ave is coming back. I love the chicken soup at Artie's and the chopped liver at Barney Greengrass (not technically a deli, I suppose).

I can't help being nostalgic for Gitlitz - the counter guy used to give me free roasted turkey necks - or for the glory that used to be Fine & Schapiro.

Haven't had their soup, but Zingerman's in Ann Arbor makes amazingly good Corned Beef and Rye Bread

What I really want to know, Ed, is whether your wife ordered red meat on your first date at Gitlitz's. ;-)

Personally, I have never had a taste for pastrami or corned beef, so it probably would've been a turkey and chopped liver sandwich for me.

Ed, you need to try the Souper Soup at Sarge's. Matzo ball, noodles, and Kreplach (sp?) all in one bowl.

Hey Ed,
David Sax here of http://www.savethedeli.com Having eaten hundreds of deli meals in the past year (still alive!), here's the emmis on what I've found to be tops.

In NY:
-Great surprises from Pastrami Queen on Lex and 78th, which has excellent dry cured pastrami with the recipe from ex Pastrami King of Queens.
-agree on Liebman's, Katz's, Carnegie. Only Artie's experience was with you. Good local deli, but not tops in city or nation in my opinion.
-Essex on Coney, in Brooklyn, is the best glatt kosher offering, and the best atmosphere, cholent and chicken soup has to be Gottlieb's in Williamsburg, a hassidic place where everyone speaks Yiddish.
-For a chain, Ben's Kosher is a winner, with a wonderful house cured corned beef and tongue, not to mention golden kreplach with carmelized onions
-Katz's still rules the roost in Manhattan overall, despite the fries, or other cooked foods. It's a pastrami place, and if they just served that I couldn't fault them.

As for the rest of the nation/world, I'll include some of the tops

Detroit: no other city seves finer rye bread. It'll make the stuff in NY seem like pop tarts.
Stage Door Deli is the biggest and most popular overall
Zingerman's is a haven of fresh everything, made from the finest ingredients money can buy. I hope it's the model for future delis.

Chicago: Manny's is the Katz's of the windy city, and their corned beef is pink silk. Obama eats there...
Kaufman's, in Skokie, makes a killer reuben strudel, which is to die for.

Boulder: The best noodle kugel and house smoked fish I've had was at a new place called Jimmy and Drew's 28th St. Deli in Boulder, Colorado. they make everything in house, including meats and fish, which is rarely seen these days. Their kugel is so dense, sweet, and custardy, it slows the heart with joy.

LA: I know you're a New Yorker, and conceding anything to LA is tantamount to treason, but let me say as an objective observer, that LA is close to surpassing New York in deli quality per capita.
Langer's has the finest pastrami anywhere. Period. Better than Katz's. Hands down.
Nate n' Al serves up the finest matzo ball soup, and corned beef made from certified angus beef...so rich it melts on the tongue like iced cream
Factor's, Junior's, Art's are all top grade delis that can stand toe to toe with anything on 7th Ave, at a fraction of the price, plus you can get a movie deal just eating there.
Brent's, in the Valley, is the mother of them all...a place of such fine tuned perfection even their kishke tastes of crispy gold.
Say what you will about LA...until you eat their deli it's just words.

Houston: Kenny and Ziggy's is one of the best all round New York delis. It just happens to be in cow country. Ziggy Gruber is a deli man the likes of Abe Lebewohl or Leo Steiner. When he returns to New York one day, the city will take some serious notice. Kugels light as air, cabbage rolls that taste like fluffy veal.

Florida: a wasteland. The Rascal House will soon be torn down, and with it, the joy of Jewish Florida. That said, 3G's in DelRay Beach offers a glimmer of hope, with sandwiches on double baked rye and schmaltz filled matzo balls.

I've heard great things about Attman's in Baltimore and 4th St. Deli in Philly, plus Harold's in NJ, but can't comment from experience.

I will say that Montreal is the town to beat. Schwartz's is the king, but attention must be paid to Lester's, Snowdon Deli, Abie's, and Smoked Meat Pete. The grilled salami sandwiches at Wilensky's are the ambrosia of my youth.

Has Fine & Schapiro closed? It was in my neighborhood, and when love threatened to derail me, a bowl of their soup comforted.

As far as I know Fine & Schapiro is still open. They even deliver to my house.

I agree. though I love fries, and their quality can greatly enhance a deli experience (see Schwartz's), they aren't in the lexicon of Ashkenazi cooking. Let's say latkes for compromise.

Couple of Rules when discussing "real" delis:

1. If the place serves a Reuben, it is not a real deli.
- Real Delis do not serve milk. Period. End of Story.
- Katz, Carnegie, Artie's, Sarge's, Stage all FAKE. Does not matter how long they have been open, if there is milk on the menu might as well be a McDonalds.

2. Real Delis are Kosher. That is the heart and the soul of the Deli. It is there reason for being.

3. When Second Avenue Deli closed, the era of the great NY Kosher Deli in Manhattan ended with it. Maybe, the Second Avenue Deli on Third Avenue will live up to its predecessor. Probably not. There is no point in looking for a real deli in Manhattan any more. Does not exist.

Goldenberg's is actually a distant branch of the great Stage Door Deli of Detroit area, so it's roughly the same deal.
Kenny and Ziggy's just opened today in Portland. House cured and smoked pastrami, hand cut, on freshly baked bread. Head down that gorgeous coastal highway and check it out Stushi.

Yeah, mutant4, I'd been hearing a lot about Kenny & Ziggy's even before it opened. Now I just need another excuse for a field trip to Portland. Pastrami and Powell's Books!

DC has long been a deli wasteland. Although there's a glimmer of hope, Brooklyn Deli (open about 2 years) in the far suburbs of Rockville, Maryland serves excellent corned beef and pastrami.

This article, and Ed's in the NY Times, is another excursion of food nostalgia for me. It's been 19 years since I moved out of New York, and the food is one of the elements that I've missed the most -- and Jewish food and particularly deli is such a intricate matrix of comfort food, ethnicity, memory, place and family. Pastrami, knishes, lukshen kugel, hot dog specials... boy oh boy. I always stopped at Second Ave Deli or Sarge's when I visited New York again, and am glad to read that a new iteration of the former will open soon.

Mutant4 (aka David Sax) -- your savethedeli.com site is terrific and amazing to read.

In Boston, there is a true kosher deli called Rubin's-no milk. Their food is really good (not great) and the best I have found so far in Boston.
Two types of pastrami, good tounge, and the brisket is good. Also, a really good kosher bologna. The soup has really nice body and is well salted (very important.) The matzoh are fine.. I don't really have much to compare them to. The kreplach are awesome-I think they have leftover tounge inside.

If my taste memory serves me well, Schwartz's is not as heavily smoked as Katz's. Some people like the lighter smoke, some people don't. The fries at Schwartz's are great.

I'll second (or third, or fourth, or whatever) the recommendation of Attman's in Baltimore. I took my groomsmen there the morning of my wedding -- guys from Brooklyn, Texas,Cleveland, and Knoxville -- and everyone was impressed with the quality of the corned beef and pastrami. For me, it's without question the best in the area (and I'm counting "the area" as all the way down through DC), and up there with even the best of NYC.

Zingermans blows the doors off Shapiros any day. And I've heard that Katzinger's is but a pale ghost of Zingermans. I've just moved to Columbus so I haven't had a chance to verify it for myself yet. If you're interested in a dining partner when you check it out, let me know. There's also Dannys Deli (a branch of the one in Cleveland) which has pretty good corned beef (though a bit dry) but their rye bread may as well be WonderBread(tm)

Adelmans on Kings in Highway in Brooklyn -- Better corned beef than 2nd Avenue Deli!

I think Savta is right, though in thinking about NYCdawg's post, I'm sure to many people delis do have to be kosher and observe dietary laws. I myself have been raised on non-kosher deli food, so that's what I have come to think that deli food is.

I've never been to Hobby's, so I can't compare it to any others. I'm really not qualified to comment on delis since I almost always get hot dogs. I've only had pastrami at Katz's. Occasionally I'll have a corned beef reuben. While eating my hot dog and pastrami sandwich at Katz's a few years ago, I sampled my wife's corned beef reuben. While very good, I preferred the reubens at Syd's and Tabatchnik's in Union, N.J. Unfortunately both of these places, which were located in the same strip mall are gone. They were forced out to make room for a Staples. These 2 places were 2 of my favorites. Syd's was known for their hot dogs, which I consider the best I've had.

From what I understand Kosher delis cannot mix meat and dairy; it isn't Kosher. Kosher style delis, like Katz's can, since they aren't certified Kosher. Deli King in Clark, N.J. is Kosher, and will not make a reuben, but will put the cheese on the side. Yet they are open on the Sabbath. When I asked the owner about this, he couldn't give me an answer. Another Kosher deli, Maple Kosher Meats, is closed on the Sabbath. One of the owners there told me that the Rabbi that certifies Deli King as Kosher must be liberal. Interesting. I don't understand it. Maple Kosher Meats is one of the few places I know of in N.J. where you can get Hebrew National franks with a casing. It is a collagen casing, and you can get as little as one if you wish. They are always kept sealed in a package and not left open. They're located in the same strip mall as Syd's and Tabatchnik's before they were kicked out. That is the Millburn Mall (although technically located in Union) on Vauxhall Rd. in Union. Goldberg's Kosher Meats in Old Bridge is another place where you can get Hebrew National with casing. Wegman's in Woodbridge is another, but I wouldn't get them there. The one time I did, they were left out exposed to the air too long and were dried out when I had them.

the whole kosher thing is a morass.

Glatt Kosher: the highly certified, closed on sabbath and all holy days, watermark of orthodox eating. If you're frum, this is where you eat. Noah's Ark on Clinton is one.

Plain old Kosher: uses certified kosher products, though not necessarily glatt (Hebrew Ntl), open on sabbath, but no milk and meat, treyf. Kosher people will eat there, but not Orthodox. 2nd Ave Deli is prime example.

Kosher style: an outdated term. Once meant "hey, our meat may not be kosher, but we don't put cheese on our sandwiches, and no bacon will enter this store". Then kosher style places started serving treyf, and now it basically is a euphemism for Jewish Style.

Deli: any of the above, providing they serve steamed pastrami, corned beef, and other jewish specialties. They can be glatt kosher (Essex on Coney), or completely treyf (Carnegie), but you only know it when you visit. If the smell of salt and steamed meat doesn't knock you over, it ain't a deli.

Oh, I though you said they would put the cheese on the side (which means they serve cheese on the premises). It's not for me to consider whether a place is kosher. Food might be technically kosher, but if an establishment is open on the sabbath, you'd be hard pressed to find a rabbi willing to sign his name to a certificate verifying the kashruth. You could find some rabbis who would sign off on it, but many stringently observant Jews with [what they consider to be] the highest standards wouldn't eat there.
PS: Wow, 6:24 am. You wake up pretty early in the morning to blog!

Schwartz in Montreal has no competition. It is smoked meat, which is different from pastrami, but hard to describe it. You taste the beef and the spices much more. As an ex-Montrealer and a current New Yorker, I still go up to Montreal whenever I can. The rye bread is also fantastic, slightly crispy outside that I never had here in New York. Also btw, Montreal has the best bagels in the world - chewy and not doughy like the ones here - two places: St Viateur Bagel (La Maison de Bagel) and Fairmont close and second best (i know I digress)...Went to Rascals in Miami - absolutely horrible! No loss.

I accept the fact that Langers has very good pastrami, but what am I to make of the fact that this "Deli" that some hold out to be so special, offers a pastrami sandwich WITH CHEESE?????????????

Aiy gavalt!!!

If you ever happen to be in Toledo Ohio be sure to visit PJ's Deli. It's another great one! I've included the link to a description. http://toledoareafood.blogspot.com/

I have to disagree about Artie's. I've only eaten there once and the fries, hot dogs, and pastrami were all mediocre. It's nice to know the place is up on the UWS if necessary, but I'm definitely not putting it in the same category as Ben's Best, Sarge's, or Katz's. \