Pastrami: A nostalgic, iconic Long Island tradition

When Abe and Annie Ahmed opened their tiny eatery in Seaford in 2016, they needed a name that conveyed what kind of restaurant it was. "If you call it a deli,” Abe explained, "no one knows what you mean — is it a Jewish-style deli or the other kind, with all the sandwiches and heroes and everything else." He christened his spot Pastrami Express because, "When you say pastrami, everyone knows exactly what you mean.”

It was a similar impulse that led Ernie Quartarone to name his kosher Commack restaurant Pastrami N Friends back in 1975. "Pastrami means tradition, family, comfort,” he said. "Customers will say, ‘That’s what my dad, my grandfather, used to order’ — it takes them back to their roots.” For Ronnie Roman, Quartarone’s partner since 2007, the ultimate deli experience is "a fat, juicy pastrami on rye with mustard.” Added Quartarone, "The mustard cuts the richness of the meat, and so does the sour pickle you eat between bites.”

There are four Long Island establishments named for this most iconic of deli meats: Along with Express and N Friends, there’s Pastrami Plus in East Meadow and Irving’s Pastrami in Farmingdale. But for such an iconic food, its manufacture and provenance are shrouded in mystery. Stop a diner mid-sandwich and ask her what pastrami is and chances are, she’ll have no idea. Ask the proprietor of the shop where the pastrami is from and you’re likely to learn ... bupkis.

Long Island’s newest pastrami hot spot, Five High Marketplace, made a splash last year with its assertive, hand-cut pastrami. Unlike the usual delicate deli slices with their edging frill of black, its slabs were ringed with bark, the deep-flavored, just-this-side-of-burnt crust that is the hallmark of Texas-style barbecued brisket.

Photos of the towering sandwich, accompanied by fervent commentary (OMG❤️), turned this unprepossessing deli-market on the outskirts of Huntington Village into a pastrami pilgrimage site. Owner Ben Zelouf was a full-time finance guy until he bought the store in 2023 and only decided to serve pastrami when a family friend offered to make it for him. But, less than two years later — despite the fact that he’s outgrown his location, closed it and is planning to open a full-service kosher-style restaurant elsewhere — he has adopted the reticence of a lifelong pastrami boss.

Who’s the family friend?

"He’s an old family friend.”

Where does he make it?

"Nearby.”

How does he make it?

"It’s a lengthy process.”

What’s the recipe?

"It’s an old Romanian-Polish family recipe. I tweaked it a little.”

How did you tweak it?

"You know you’re right — pastrami people are cryptic!”

Pastrami is a descendant of pastirma/basturma, an air-cured beef product that emerged in Turkey, spread throughout the Ottoman Empire, the Balkans and Eastern Europe, then came to the United States with Jewish immigrants in the 19th century. The truth is, it’s easier to research its origins than its current incarnations. And so, we approached a master of the form, a man who retired from the business seven years ago and might be induced to bend, if not break, the omertà of pastrami.

Eddie Weinberg was the owner of Brooklyn’s A to Z kosher Meats, founded in the Bronx in the 1930s by his grandfather Hugo Weinberg. (The company shut its doors seven years ago.) A to Z’s "Empire National” deli meats were considered the crème de la crème in the metropolitan area and were the stars of the menu at Lido kosher Deli in Long Beach — which happens to be owned by Eddie’s first cousin, Wally Goetz, and Wally’s son, Russell.

To get to the bottom of pastrami, Weinberg participated in a summit at Lido with another retired pastrami swami, Jay Parker, whose Ben’s Best Deli in Rego Park closed in 2018 after 73 years and who Weinberg considered his "strategic partner.”

Parker began, "Pastrami isn’t a recipe, it’s a process. It can be made from anything — Zabar’s makes a pastrami salmon — but a traditional New York deli — style pastrami is made from the beef navel.” The navel is a fatty cut from the belly of the steer, behind the brisket and in front of the flank.

At this juncture, Parker found it helpful to contrast pastrami with corned beef, which is made with a whole brisket, a larger cut comprising two muscles, the lean "first cut” and fatty "point” or "second cut.” Both processes begin with soaking the meat in a brine containing salt and other seasonings. But after the brining, he said, "There’s a fork in the road. The corned beef gets boiled and that’s it. At that point, it’s delivered to the deli, and they cook it more, simmering it until tender, keeping it tender in a steam box.”

Coming out of the brine, the navel has a ways to go before it becomes pastrami. First, the damp meat is coated with spices. Which spices? Weinberg allowed that, in his recipe, peppercorns and coriander seeds are involved. Cumin seeds are possibly involved. Dill is definitely not involved.

According to virtually every source, the next step on pastrami’s journey is smoking. Right? Weinberg dashed that assumption. "When A to Z was in the Bronx,” he said, "we had a smoker that burned sawdust. But when we moved to Brooklyn in 1970, we stopped. Our pastrami was never overly smoky and so we added a little liquid hickory smoke to the brine.” Furthermore, he declared, "There is no one in New York that is burning any kind of wood to make pastrami.” (To answer your next question, while the website of Katz’s Deli in Manhattan says their pastrami is "slow-smoked for 3 days at a low temperature,” a 2020 article on the Serious Eats website noted that, "Once they apply the spice rub, the Katz’s team sends their pastrami to a subcontractor facility that handles thousands of pounds of meat at once.”)

If it doesn’t get smoked, what happens to spice-rubbed navel? Weinberg said his pastrami went into a 225-degree oven and was cooked until it reached an internal temperature of 165. He’d chill it down quickly for shipping and, once it reached its destination deli, would need another four to six hours of simmering/steaming until it was soft.

Smoke or no smoke, Weinberg also declared he knows of no local deli making its own pastrami. It’s a laborious, time-consuming, space-consuming process that a deli doesn’t have the labor, time or space to perform. Think about it: Would you knock an Italian pork store for not making its own prosciutto?

When Weinberg closed A to Z in 2018, he told his cousin that his top priority was finding Lido a supplier who would make pastrami according to his own specifications and under his supervision. He was as good as his word: Lido’s remains Long Island’s pastrami to beat. Rosy and spicy — but not too spicy — it can be ordered juicy (deli speak for "fatty”), lean or extra-lean. For lean, his supplier pastramifies a chuck roast; for the extra-lean, the virtually fatless first cut of the brisket. Neither Weinberg nor either Goetz would reveal the name or location of the new pastrami supplier.

Pastrami N Friends’ Quartarone, another former A to Z customer, allowed only that, "We’ve tried all the brands. Some have too much salt or pepper, some don’t have enough, and it tastes like brisket. The pastrami that we buy — we don’t even know the exact formula, it’s like KFC.” Only Pastrami Express’ Ahmed freely gave up the name of his pastrami supplier. "We use Chefs Delight of Brooklyn, perfect seasoning, not too much spice.”

How a deli treats its pastrami is every bit as important as the pastrami it buys. Most hold it in a steam box to keep it tender but still firm enough to be cut with an electric slicer. "A good deli man knows by sticking a fork into the pastrami when it’s ready,” said Quartarone. "And you need a surgeon’s skill to slice it.”

A good deli man knows by sticking a fork into the pastrami when it’s ready. And you need a surgeon’s skill to slice it.

- Ernie Quartarone, co-owner of Pastrami N Friends in Commack

This isn’t like a salami that is the same all the way through,” noted Ahmed. "Each part has a different grain and a different amount of fat. You keep turning it around in the machine to get the kind of slice you want.”

Whereas most Long Island delis will hand-cut on request, Five High was an anomaly. Instead of a steam box, Zelouf’s smoky pastrami — he swears it was smoked — sat in its own juices, becoming more tender by the hour and thus, unfit for the slicer. Hand-cutting was yet another point of contiguity between Five High and traditional barbecue.

Ironically, as delis move away from smoked pastrami, barbecue restaurants are adding it to their repertoires. Since they employ seasoned pitmasters and have already gone through the punishing ordeal of securing permits for cooking with live fire, pastrami is a relatively easy lift. Maple Tree BBQ in Riverhead, Willie B’s Deli & Catering in East Islip, Sempre Fame in Floral Park and Blowin’ Smoke Barbecue, a "ghost smokehouse” within Prime Time Butcher in Woodbury, are among Long Island’s BBQ spots with smoked pastrami on their regular menus.

A few years back, Manny Voumvourakis started noodling around with pastrami at Smok-Haus, the Garden City restaurant he opened in 2018. "My focus had always been American barbecue with international street foods,” he said. "But three years ago, I said to my team, ‘Why don’t we try brining and smoking pastrami?’ First, we ran it as a Friday special, then a weekend special, and now it’s on the regular menu and I can’t keep up.”

It’s easy to see that Voumvourakis has no deli DNA because he invited us into his Hicksville kitchen (est. 2023) to watch the whole process. It begins with trimming a brisket. "When I started this,” he recalled, "I didn’t even know that navel was the traditional cut. But I found that they were expensive and inconsistent. I already buy a lot of briskets and so I chose the path of least resistance.”

Once trimmed of its copious fat, the brisket is submerged in a brine made with kosher and curing salts, honey, garlic, mustard seeds, white and lampong (Indonesian) peppercorns, allspice berries, dill and celery seeds and bay leaves. After two weeks, it is removed from the brine and coated with a rub containing kosher salt, black pepper, sugar, granulated onion and garlic and yellow mustard powder. Then it is heaved onto the shelf of one of four Myron Mixon smokers (burning acacia, cherry and hickory). After four to five hours, Smok-Haus pitmaster Kyle Kowalski explained, "It’s absorbed enough smoke and it runs the risk of drying out, so we wrap it in foil and let it go for another 12 hours, give or take.” The pastrami is done, he said, "when it’s jiggly, but not falling apart.”

The brisket yields lean pastrami from the first cut, juicy from the point. Either (or both) can be piled onto rye bread or a toasted club roll with mustard, sauerkraut and, because Smok-Haus is neither kosher nor even kosher-style, Swiss cheese. Or you could have your pastrami in a taco — with sauerkraut, no less! What may sound like a sacrilege is a delicious new chapter in pastrami’s proud history.