CLEVELAND — Recently, Tasting Table included Larder in its roundup of "Best Jewish Delis in the US," alongside stalwarts like Katz's Delicatessen in New York and Langer's in Los Angeles. That’s no surprise to those of us who have been visiting this bustling Ohio City deli since it opened in 2018.
Chef Jeremy Umansky, who opened Larder with his wife Allie, a baker, in 2018, grew up going to the local delicatessen. He was saddened by the national trend of traditional Jewish delis vanishing from the landscape. In the mid-20th century, there literally were 100s of these places in New York City alone. Today, it’s down to a few dozen.
Larder is a traditional Jewish deli – but with a few twists.
“We really want it to harken back to when they all specialized and made everything from scratch, and that's what we wanted to get back to,” Umansky says. “If we can make it, we will, and we'll make it as delicious as we can.”
In addition to the pastrami and fried chicken sandwiches, matzo ball soup and chopped liver, Larder offers seasonal specials that run the gamut. One day the chef might prepare a vegan sloppy joe, on another, house-cured Lake Erie caviar on toast.
Breads like the braided challah and slightly sour rye join pastries like chocolate-swirled babka, bread pudding and black and white cookies.
Before and during Hanukkah, Larder is a one-stop shop for complete and fully cooked meals that include matzo ball soup, pastrami, latkes, challah and olive oil cake.
If you’re lucky, Umansky will even explain the meaning behind the holiday, as he did recently with Doug Trattner and Mike Polk Jr.
“The Assyrians fought the Jews and destroyed their temple,” Umansky explains. “The Jews were cleaning up the temple. They only had enough oil to burn in their lamps to light the place for a day. That oil lasted eight days. We call it a miracle now. So for Hanukkah, we eat foods that are braised in oil, that are fried in oil, that have a lot of oil in them.”