When Atlanta-based modern The General Muir opened its doors in 2013, traditional Jewish-style delis in the U.S. were dwindling in number. Their offerings were also shifting to align more with generic and expansive diner menus than with traditional Jewish deli bills of fare, like pastrami, lox, matzo ball soup, bagels and corned beef. To develop the restaurant, The General Muir’s chef and co-owner Todd Ginsberg took inspiration from his childhood in the Northeast and, along with his business partners, focused on both past deli traditions and possible future evolutions.

“We needed to stay focused on a menu that honored the delis that were begun when Jewish communities first immigrated to New York,” Ginsberg says. Today, The General Muir has become an institution in Atlanta, beloved for its homemade rye bread, signature smashburger and other iconic offerings—and it’s not alone.

A clutch of other deli concepts are striving to revive and evolve the Jewish deli tradition. From the cheeky Washington D.C.-based bagel chain Call Your Mother to San Francisco’s Gold Finch Modern Delicatessen, delis throughout the U.S. are pulling off a balance between past, present and future by engineering menus that serve up classics with a few striking twists. The current state of the Jewish deli might be succinctly described by Larry Schreiber, chef and founder of Schreiber’s on Rye, which opened in Charlotte, N.C.’s Optimist Hall in 2023.

“I’ve been calling my deli Jew-‘ish,’ with that ‘ish’ always in quotes,” he says. “Charlotte is a melting pot of people, so I’m mixing the Italian deli with the Jewish deli, because I think that reflects what the customer here wants.”

Modern Deli Mash-Ups

Credit: The General Muir

Jewish deli meets Southern comfort in the Friday Fried Chicken with a side of collards that are braised in pastrami rather than the typical bacon.

Given its Atlanta address, it’s no surprise that The General Muir mingles ingredients and flavors of the American South with culinary traditions of the classic Jewish deli. At breakfast, Southern-ground grits and rye toast sticks play a carby complement to poached eggs, mushrooms and madeira sauce. And while hash is hardly a Southern exclusive, The General Muir makes the dish its own, with pastrami, red peppers, onions and cabbage topped with an over-easy egg.

Similarly, the Friday Fried Chicken (so named because it’s only served for dinner once a week) exudes Southern comfort, but its accompanying sides, including Gruyère mac and cheese topped with toasted rye crumbs and either collards or Brussels sprouts braised in pastrami, offer subtle nods to the restaurant’s deli foundation. And, rather than compete with the Southern style of frying, Ginsberg opts for a different approach with the Friday special, breading the chicken in a mix of cornstarch and flour and then steaming it before frying. The technique aligns with the Korean style of frying chicken and allows the cornstarch to gelatinize a bit. “The way we prepare it, the skin and the crust become one, and it gets a really crispy, delicate shatter when you bite into it,” he says.

In addition to the requisite deli sandwiches, Schreiber’s on Rye also serves Italian-inspired handhelds, like the Bourdain, a mortadella-and-provolone sandwich on a poppyseed kaiser roll and the meat-packed Mulberry, a hero roll stuffed with soppressata, capicola, mortadella, prosciutto, aged provolone, lettuce, tomato, mayo and banana pepper. These sandwiches aren’t mash-ups per se, but rather popular supporting players to balance more Jewish deli-leaning options like the Classic Reuben and the Bowery (house-smoked pastrami and deli mustard on seedless rye with a choice of pickles on the side). It’s a similar dynamic on the sides menu, where Coney Island Knish (fried pastry stuffed with potatoes), latkes and deli pickles share space with Southern-inspired slaw and potato salad.

Across the country, other restaurants are also playing around with different dayparts and cuisines. Call Your Mother offers bagels with lox and latkes alongside globally-inspired offerings. The latest of these, the Hidden Cove, pairs a sesame bagel sandwich with smoked salmon, mashed avocado, Korean marinated cucumber, seaweed flakes and carrots. In Evanston, Ill., Mensch’s Deli mostly sticks to traditional ingredients found in Ashkenazi-style Jewish deli fare, but the concept combines them in unconventional builds, like babka French toast, and expands its options. The menu includes four types of Reuben (corned beef, pastrami, turkey and mushroom) and seven variations of seafood proteins, from lox and whitefish salad to kippered salmon and smoked trout.

Matzo, Rye and Other Must-Haves

Credit: Andrew Thomas Lee

Even as contemporary Jewish delis expand beyond their traditional menus, certain items, like matzo ball soup, remain non-negotiable staples.

While these modern concepts are taking creative license, certain aspects remain linchpins for any Jewish deli worth its salt. Take, for example, the aforementioned Bowery sandwich. Schreiber himself spent months sampling dozens of options for what he viewed as two of the most important menu components: rye bread and pickles, even if that meant paying a slightly higher price and sourcing outside of North Carolina.

“It has to be the right ingredient and I wanted to get what is in New York. A lot of people don’t understand that a dill pickle is not what you would get in a classic Jewish deli,” Schreiber explains. “It was difficult to find a traditional pickle that was fermented in a salt brine. The right pickles have a little bit of that fermented effervescence and they’re a little sour, but not super vinegar-based.”

Matzo ball soup is also a must-have, one that perfectly encapsulates Schreiber’s personal approach to the iconic dishes. He makes a traditional clear chicken broth as the soup’s base, yet adds his own signature blend of vegetables, herbs and brined and roasted chicken meat into the typical broth-and-matzo-ball mixture. In one final nod to tradition, he adds a touch of MSG—his grandfather’s secret ingredient. “My grandfather would always make our matzo ball soup,” Schreiber says. “Before he died, he offered up, ‘You know what my secret is?’ And he pulled some gold bouillon cubes out of his pocket. That’s basically MSG, so I added a little bit to my soup.”

For The General Muir, sourcing the perfect rye bread ultimately spurred a second business. In terms of traditional deli items, Ginsberg was determined to offer a sandwich similar to the style of the pastrami-on-rye famously served by New York’s legendary Katz’s Delicatessen. But try as he might, the search proved fruitless. “I couldn’t get there without the bread, so a baker and I started playing around with our own recipe for rye in the restaurant’s pastry area,” he says. “Rye bread is really where it all started.”

TGM Bread, a sister bakery operation right next door, was the result of those early rye experiments. In addition to providing all the breads and pastries for The General Muir and other concepts under Rye Restaurants, TGM Bread also serves as a customer-facing business in its own right. The bakery sells breads (from loaves of Cuban and rye to hamburger buns and bagels) and seasonal market sandwiches at local Atlanta farmer’s markets weekly and is open to customers at its brick-and-mortar location, providing a daily soup and bread special.

Third Culture and Beyond

Credit: Andrew Thomas Lee

The flavors and ingredients of traditional delicatessens can breathe new life into other staple dishes; just look to The General Muir’s poutine, which adds pastrami to the build.

While the menus may vary, contemporary Jewish delis speak to the broader movement toward third-culture cooking, which honors its roots but also takes inspiration from other cuisines. These modern concepts are not simply one-off nods to recent ingredient trends that pull from various global cuisines. More significantly, they are reflective of a deeper interest on the part of these delicatessens’ chefs and restaurateurs in catering to the varying needs of their customers—a goal that organically helps business by seeking to make room for diverse bodies of customers.

“You need to be all-inclusive,” Ginsberg says. “We didn’t want to alienate anyone, because as soon as you alienate one part of a community, you lose a lot of potential business. In the case of The General Muir, we really wanted people from all walks of life to be able to experience what we thought was a super special deli experience from our childhoods.”