Katz’s Delicatessen makes the best pastrami. Does Bay Area compare?

I’ll never forget the first time I went to Katz’s Delicatessen. I was living in New York City for graduate school, and a particular class was centered around visiting different historic or venerable eateries throughout the five boroughs to give us a taste of the many cultures and diasporic histories of New York City. The city’s oldest, still-operating deli remains one of its best and the standard to which all pastrami sandwiches should be held. Established in 1888 in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where many Jewish immigrants lived in tenement housing, it became famous not only for its pastrami but also for Meg Ryan swooning over the cured meat in a famous scene from the movie “When Harry Met Sally.”

On a sunny fall day in 2019, as the weather was slowly getting colder, my classmates and I waited in line for our tickets to go in (at Katz’s, no ticket means no food). We chatted about what we were going to order, as well as our favorite pastrami sandwiches from our hometowns. A purist, I wanted to taste the most conventional pastrami sandwich Katz’s offered — pastrami with yellow mustard on rye. That’s it. None of this melted cheese, sauerkraut, coleslaw or Reuben dressing to zhuzh it up. I wanted the reddish-pink slices of cured beef to shine; they are cut so thick that when piled one on top of the other, they almost look like bricks in a heap of rubble.

When it arrived at my table, the glossy off-white fat cap slivers spilled over the edges of the rye bread and nearly touched the plate; the black crust, or “bark,” created by the pepper rub that covered the exterior glimmered as brightly as the fat; the sandwich was so big it could very easily have fed a family of four. Katz’s pastrami sandwich made me salivate like a rabid dog.

Ever since, I’ve been trying to find a pastrami with as much chutzpah.

Now that I am back in the Bay Area, I’ve been hunting for a killer pastrami sandwich with as much peppery, salty-flavored cured meat and melt-in-your-mouth slabs of fat. Whenever I see a pastrami sandwich on a menu, it takes me back to that food memory I had at Katz’s.

On my recent pastrami probe to fill that void Katz’s left in my soul, I visited three spots that are well known for turning a stringy cut of beef, brisket or the navel, into a succulent mound of lacquered, peppery pink meat.

Delirama, which opened in 2022 and is owned and operated by Cash Caris and Anahita Cann, is regularly mentioned in Bay Area food media as having some of the best pastrami in the bay. Located at 1746 Solano Ave. in Berkeley, just on the edge of Albany, the restaurant is often blasting music, like “Come Together” by the Beatles, from one large speaker placed just outside the eatery’s door. The humble interior has carpeted floors, an iPad kiosk for ordering and tables filled with both newcomers and regulars, like Leor, whom I heard Cann ask, “Do you want the usual?” Leor nodded. One year and they already have regulars.

On my first visit, I ordered the OG, by accident, which was like a Reuben but with a dill-y coleslaw that already had me reminiscing of New York. But I had to go back to order the Dad’s Mustard — house-made pastrami, seeded mustard on homemade rye bread — which is the most Katz’s-like option on the small but mighty menu. Yes, I was devoted to this search.

I could definitely see what the hype was about. The pastrami, which is brined for 26 days in a multitude of spices, was definitely juicy, flavorful and less salty than the other versions of pastrami I would come to experience. I appreciated that. It was sliced super thin, like from a deli meat slicer, which is very different from Katz’s thick-cut slices.

With each bite I took, the long, loose hallway-runners-of-meat slipped out from the bread and hung from my mouth. It was messy but good. My favorite part of the sandwich was the freshly baked rye bread: doughy, yet light with a strong caraway flavor. At Katz’s, I recall the sliced rye being quite dry and lacking strong flavor. It was mostly just a vessel to hold the hand-carved pastrami. Delirama slathers the rye with clarified butter and toasts it on the griddle, which might make some New Yorkers cringe but was definitely more delicious than the rye I remember.

My second pit stop on that pastrami-filled day brought me to Saul’s Restaurant & Delicatessen, a 37-year-old Jewish deli in North Berkeley. Located at 1475 Shattuck Ave., the deli is housed in a cavernous building with a curved roof, just up the street from Chez Panisse. According to the restaurant’s website, the building was first a produce depot in the 1930s, and since the ’50s, it has been home to a cadre of delicatessens — the Pantry Shelf, Rosenthal’s and now Saul’s. A mini institution in the famed dining district, the menu offers many classic Jewish deli items, such as matzo ball soup, knishes, chopped liver and, of course, pastrami. The decor was very 1950s, with pleather booths and white plates with a blue trim.

While Saul’s purposefully does not try to “replicate another place (like New York),” according to the website, the menu highlighted the fattiness of the restaurant’s pastrami, which is rubbed with pepper, paprika, coriander, allspice and other spices before it is brined for 10 days.

“Fatty and delicious, never lean!” read the menu. It made me even more eager to try Saul’s pastrami sandwich.

Served with a flat but super crispy latke, the classic light rye was bursting with pink and black bits. The meat was hand-cut relatively thick and had matchstick-sized fibers splintering at every bite, like at Katz’s. I sent a picture to my friend, a born-and-bred New Yorker, who had taken me to Barney Greengrass, another legendary NYC delicatessen. She said it looked nice and tasty and had “a decent amount of pastrami.” She was perplexed, though, that it did not come with a pickle on the side — “very un-Jewish,” she said. (According to the restaurant, you have to request a side pickle). While the pastrami was enjoyably salty, peppery and had a classic, tendril-like texture, it was sadly devoid of the fattiness that was highlighted on the menu. Still, it was the most Katz’s-like pastrami I experienced in my sandwich scrutinization.

If Saul’s was the Bay Area’s 1950’s version of a New York deli, San Francisco’s Mission District flagship of Wise Sons Jewish Delicatessen evokes turn-of-the-century delis. Adorned with black-and-white portraits on the walls with mismatched rectangular and oval-shaped frames that are slightly askew, the restaurant brines its pastrami in a “proprietary blend of spices,” which includes coriander, before it is smoked over hickory wood for almost seven hours. The Jewish deli was opened in 2010 by Leo Beckerman and brothers Evan and Ari Bloom and is at 3150 24th St.

While I have visited many times, this time I ordered takeout so I could enjoy my sandwich at home. Despite the travel time, Wise Sons pastrami was the juiciest. It also had the best flavor — so salty and peppery it made me thirsty, but in the best way possible. The meat itself was somehow the perfect blend of the pastrami textures from Delirama and Saul’s — thin, yet fibrous. It was baffling and delicious. Between each bite, I dipped my side order latke into the apple sauce and sour cream. The experience brought me back to Barney Greengrass, in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, with my New Yorker friend, where we unknowingly enjoyed our last in-person meal right before the pandemic shutdowns.

While I did not find my Meg Ryan-moment in this search, I didn’t fake my excitement either about the outstanding pastrami options in the Bay Area. Katz’s gave me exceedingly high, perhaps irrational, expectations. What these Bay Area pastrami professionals have that Katz’s doesn’t is an inherent desire to experiment, expand and broaden the pastrami horizons.

With pastrami juices sloshing in my stomach, I found solace in the fact that Katz’s can always be my first trip off the plane when I visit New York City. Here, at home? We have some damn fine pastrami, too. If only I could somehow combine the homemade rye from Delirama, the thick, hand carved slices from Saul’s and the flavor from Wise Sons. Now that might be even better than Katz’s.