• Mile End

  97A Hoyt St., nr. Atlantic Ave., Boerum Hill; 718-852-7510

  Apologies to Epstein’s, the Woodro, King David, and all the other formative delis of our kosher-style youth, the holy trinity Katz’s, Carnegie, and 2nd Ave.) among them. Mile End, the barely open, instantly overrun Canadian-Brooklyn oddball, has already, in its infancy, reinvented the venerable form. This is a deli for locavores, a deli for the next generation of deli lovers, with a respect for tradition contemporized by a rare premium on great, fresh ingredients, cooked from scratch, smoked and pickled in-house, served with an unfamiliar (in the deli world, anyway) smile. The smoked Creekstone Farms brisket is aggressively seasoned, hand-sliced into succulent shards, and encased in respectable Orwasher’s rye. Salami, made on-premises from brisket and short rib, is pressed inside a squishy onion roll. Montreal bagels are smaller than our own, and typically sesame-seeded, but you shouldn’t hold that against them. The menu is nascent, the pickles still pickling, but the whole package is enough to make even the proudest New Yorker swallow his pride and wash it down with a cup of Brooklyn-roasted Stumptown coffee.

From the 2010 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine