As many chefs and restaurant owners (and critics) will tell you: You can’t please everyone. There will always be people out there who won’t appreciate your vision, no matter how you execute it. There will always be people who think you can’t deliver. That’s life.
As the Tribune‘s Louisa Chu pointed out in her recent look at the past, present, and future of the Jewish deli, it’s a famously difficult business model to sustain at our current place in time. We’ve seen valiant attempts to revive it before: Brendan Sodikoff shelved Hogsalt Hospitality’s ambitious and promising Dillman’s before it really even achieved its potential. Before that an established import, Steve’s Detroit Deli, sank in the same River North space.
On the other hand, on my third and most recent visit a friend—who on his only previous stop had been soured by all the ways Steingold’s isn’t a traditional deli—was happily surprised by the Grandma Rachel, a precisely layered strata of red-cabbage coleslaw and roasted turkey breast oozing with melted Havarti and Russian dressing but still well contained within thick slices of lightly toasted challah. Similarly, I’m besotted with the Steingold’s Classic, a bagel of your choice shmeared with cream cheese embedded with tangy capers and topped with tomato and, in my case, a stack of lush sliced Ora King nova lox, a sandwich close enough to God that He might spare humanity just long enough to eat it.
1840 W. Irving Park 773-661-2469steingoldsdeli.com
