Zobler’s Delicatessen, The Ned, 27 Poultry, London EC2R 8BP (020 3828 2000). Meal for two, including drinks: £25 to £50
At Zobler’s Deli I got excited about a bowl of chicken matzo ball soup. This is proof of either the soup’s brilliance or my low expectations. In truth, it was both. Zobler’s is located inside the newly opened Ned, the deep-varnished, brass and parqueted hotel in the City of London. It’s a £200m collaboration between club operators The Soho House group and hotel specialists Sydell, and occupies the Lutyens-designed former Midland Bank HQ. I was once a Midland customer. Now my bank is dispensing chicken soup. This is progress.
The ground floor is the original banking hall. It’s a brazen display of vaulting ceilings, huge arches and columns, and pure in-your-face financial muscle. It looks like one of those spaces that would fold up on itself in an especially pulse-quickening scene from the movie Inception. While much of the building is the hotel and members’ club, the ground floor is open to the public and houses most of the nine restaurants that have been launched simultaneously. There’s a pan-Asian place, a French café, an outpost of the dreary Italian Cecconi’s, a British-themed restaurant that’s open 24 hours and something worrying called the Malibu Kitchen. Apparently they’re serving Californian food. I understand quinoa is involved.
And then there’s Zobler’s. It proclaims itself a New York Jewish deli in the tradition of the famous Katz’s. Yeah, right. Because what exactly would these people know about proper chicken soup? As my Great Aunt Muriel might have said, but didn’t. Plus, we already have a new one of these. By coincidence Monty’s Deli recently opened its first full-scale restaurant in Hoxton after years in a railway arch near Tower Bridge, where they perfected their salt beef and pastrami. Not that I can mention Monty’s as it is co-owned by the partner of an Observer colleague. So I haven’t said a word. Except that it exists. And it’s excellent.
At Zobler’s there’s a menu written like the Hudson River is nearby and the locals want to shout at you in fluent Sopranos. There’s a list of sandwiches and that chicken soup and the weird mood of the rest of the Ned, full of air kissing and swagger and bars shaking ludicrous cocktails. Except the soup is bloody brilliant and costs just £3. The broth is deep and insistent, and bellows of a chicken sacrificed to a noble cause. There are soft, sweet vegetables and, in the middle, a large matzo ball of ineffable lightness which is nothing like the ones my grandmother made, because she was a lousy cook. Follow that with a quarter of their crisp-skinned roast chicken, stuffed with challah, schmaltz – that’s chicken fat; do keep up – and onions, with gravy and salad. It costs £6. That’s a serious meal inside the Ned, for less than a tenner. It’s life-affirming food. It’s the sort of food that reminds you to laugh in the face of quinoa, often.
I investigate the rest of the menu carefully, because the cooking of New York’s Jewish delis, the things that make it right and those that make it wrong, are very particular. Good pastrami – brisket, first cured then spiced and smoked – is a marvellous thing. Bad pastrami is the end of all hope. Salt beef – brisket that’s just been cured – is not just salt beef. Getting all this right demands care and a respect for the culture.
This is where Zobler’s is ahead. It’s named after Andrew Zobler, CEO of hoteliers Sydell. He’s a New Yorker, presumably deeply steeped in the culture of Katz’s Deli and Barney Greengrass, the “sturgeon king”. It seems he wanted a bit of home in London, so hired chef John Stevenson, previously of the New York landmark Russ and Daughters. Oh, their smoked salmon and whitefish, their herring and bagels and chopped liver. In the event of calamity run to Russ and Daughters. It makes the pain go away. Stevenson opened their café and then their concession inside New York’s Jewish Museum. News of his involvement here is the kind of thing to make me nod my head and say “interesting”, in a really irritating, superior fashion.
Stevenson has spent a year trying to source ingredients, having discovered that, under international food regulations, importing pastrami and salt beef direct from New York was impossible. Instead, they gave the recipes to a Northampton supplier. On the downside, this means they’re not making a lot of their key foods themselves: not the beef, not the bagels, not the challah. On the upside the pastrami is spectacular. The flavour of smoke and spice is deep without being bullying. There’s a necessary fattiness. In their classic sandwich, it comes in slices of a grown-up thickness, even if there aren’t quite enough of them. You can eat this sandwich without dislocating your jaw, an impossibility at Katz’s. That’s a bad thing. Still, it’s a serious sandwich, as it should be for £10.
This makes the disappointment of the salt beef in their dire attempt at a Reuben all the more odd. It’s dry and crumbly and depressed. They don’t ask if you want fat on or fat off, as they should. Fat is key to salt beef, much as canals are key to Venice. I mention this to Stevenson, in a strident way, like he’s let himself down. “No, it’s not right,” he says. “But we’ll get it right.”
The bagels come from Carmelli’s. For the “Lower East Side” open sandwich, the sides are stacked with a major pile of Foreman’s ungreasy smoked salmon for £7. Crisp latkes, those shameless cakes made of shredded potato, egg, onion, and “I don’t care,” come with puddles of sour cream and apple sauce. Their cucumber salad, a mere £2, is bang on: that happy balance of acidity, sweetness and crunch. Dill happens a lot at Zobler’s. Perhaps you want to ask them to leave it off the soup.
They make cheesecake on site. They say it’s sugarless apart from the condensed milk, which is like saying a Martini is alcohol free, apart from the gin. Too many cheesecakes try to hide their nature; this one has a pleasing salty, cheesy edge. It’s echt. As are their blinis, made to order with a berry compote. There’s a lot to like about Zobler’s. Effort has been made. It’s not perfect, but if it were what the hell would I kvetch about? The salt beef problems only added to my enjoyment. Zobler’s will more than do. Now eat your bloody soup.
Jay’s news bites
■ The Street Lane Bakery in north Leeds launched a few years ago on the same site as the BHH synagogue. Recent terrorist incidents have required increased security; you now need to buzz to get into award-winning bakery, but you’d be a fool not to. They bake some of the finest bagels in the city, alongside killer doughnuts, cakes and pastries. 399 Street Lane, Leeds.
■ And a big smoky welcome to Pit Magazine, a new title dedicated to the joys of smoking and cooking over fire. Launched and edited by Helen Graves of the site Food Stories, the first edition, full of glossy images of hot meat-on-fire action, includes pieces on Hawksmoor chef Richard Turner and his Big Green Egg, and the science of smoke. Available from pitmagazine.uk
■ Plans by magazine publisher Time Out for a vast food market in Tower Hamlets containing 17 restaurants have been rejected by the council after 70 written objections from local residents, complaining about the impact on the neighbourhood. Time Out says it will appeal.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1
