Pastrami On Rye appears as a signature dish in 1 United States cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Pastrami on rye · New York City
Pastrami on rye is brined navel beef, smoked, steamed and hand-sliced thick onto seeded caraway rye with yellow mustard. The defining New York City Jewish-deli sandwich, since the 1880s.
Sussman Volk, a Lithuanian butcher on Delancey Street, is credited with serving the first pastrami sandwich in New York in 1887 after acquiring a Romanian recipe. Katz's Delicatessen, opened in 1888 on Houston Street, made the sandwich a city institution: navel cut, cured 30 days, smoked over hardwood and steamed before slicing by hand. Second Avenue Deli, founded 1954, kept the kosher-style tradition uptown. The sandwich shrank as the Yiddish-speaking Lower East Side aged out, but the surviving handful of full-process delis still cure and smoke their own meat from raw brisket.
Where to eat in New York City:
- Katz's Delicatessen
- 2nd Ave Deli
- Pastrami Queen
- Sammy's Roumanian Steakhouse
- Mile End Deli