:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/The-Ultimate-Chicago-Delis-FT-BLOG0724-Mannys-01-b355d52d594c47f5adccdd3ef56127a2.jpg "The Ultimate Guide to Chicago Delis")
I’ve always found it odd and kind of charming when New Yorkers use the word “deli” as an indefinite noun, as in “we’re going to eat some deli.” To them, it’s a ubiquitous and enjoyable food choice, like Italian or Chinese. Not so in Chicago. Instead of neighborhood delis, we have endless sandwich shops — places like The Original Beef of Chicagoland in “The Bear,” where you can order from a menu that includes a combination of Italian beef, hamburgers, hot dogs and gyros.
Our delis, on the other hand, are destinations – places we go for a treat, for the kind of meal that elicits a cardiologist’s joke. Here, delis fall into three basic categories: Jewish, Italian and Polish. While Chicagoans argue endlessly about pizza, we seem to agree, by and large, on which delis are the best today. Here they are.
Manny’s Cafeteria & Delicatessen
Courtesy of Manny’s Cafeteria and Delicatessan
Chicago once had a large number of delis and other grocery stores near what was once Maxwell Street Market—a hub for Jewish merchants and subsequent waves of other immigrants. Manny’s has been in the area in one form or another since 1942, finally landing at its current location in the mid-1960s, where it became something of a city institution. Is it technically a “deli” if there’s no meat market, pickle barrels, or packaged foods to go? Who cares when the latkes are so huge and crispy, the matzo balls and kreplach soups are so full of love, and the hot corned beef sandwich is the behemoth of your dreams? I always vow to take half home, and occasionally I succeed.
Kaufman’s Bagel & Delicatessen
Courtesy of Kaufman’s
The nearby suburb of Skokie has long been a center of Jewish culture in Chicago, and it’s where you’ll find the city’s best traditional deli. Kaufman’s is the place to eat an impossibly over-the-top sandwich and end up stocking your kitchen with half-sour pickles, Nova salmon, fresh-baked bagels, rugelach, and tubs of frozen matzo ball soup. I have a penchant for “Moise’s Pupik” – a pile of hand-cut corned beef or pastrami on corn rye with spicy mustard. (Pupik means “navel” in Yiddish, and I don’t even want to know.) One day I’m going to try the “New Jersey Bypass,” a double-decker bus with corned beef and pastrami. Please note the cardiologist joke.
Andy’s Deli & Mikolajczyk Sausage Shop
Eric Ruder
Andy’s is the largest and most inviting Polish deli in the north, and a kind of Eastern European wonderland. The meat and sausage counter is the main attraction for expats who crowd there to fiddle around the counter. There’s also a bakery that offers great sour rye bread, those sweet custard- or jelly-filled doughnuts called paczki, and thick squares of cake that seem to be at least 50% frosting. Walk past the shelves of imported dry goods to the prepared food counter in the back, where you can get a generous hot lunch—one meat, one starch, one salad—for about $10. The selection is huge, and includes duck and veal, among other things. On my last visit, I opted for a roasted pork knuckle, a bed of bulgur in mushroom sauce, and a sauerkraut, apple, and carrot salad.
JP Graziano Grocery Store
Courtesy of JP Graziano Grocery
The city’s West Loop has been transformed in recent years from an appealingly gritty former industrial area, with the hulking remains of wholesale market buildings and warehouses, into a nightlife mecca with countless restaurants, bars and boutique hotels. But if you want a taste of what once was (both figuratively and culinary), grab a sandwich to go from the nearly 90-year-old Italian deli JP Graziano Grocery. The giardiniera it serves is known throughout the city as a key ingredient in Italian beef sandwiches. Here, however, that elixir (which comes in both hot and mild varieties) is used on subs made from crispy, meter-long loaves of bread, topped with slices of cold cuts and cheese, and ice-cold lettuce and tomatoes. It’s all trust-based, with no tickets in sight. Order at the counter, help yourself to whatever chips and drinks you want, admire the seemingly decorative old deli counter full of salami, and stroll over to the old wooden cash register in the back. Then just crowd around and wait for your sandwich to be called.
