Freddie’s, Belle Vue, Rowland Hill Street, London NW3 2AQ (freddiesdeli.co.uk). Breakfast plates £6-£15; starters £8-£13; sandwiches and platters £7-£17.50; desserts £4.50-£8; unlicensed
Today, I am rehearsing for my dotage. I am doing this by gripping a properly stacked salt beef sandwich; the sort of multilayered, bulging affair that challenges the structural integrity of the sliced rye bread which is trying and failing to enclose it. The cure on the thick-cut tangle of salt beef is deep and there’s just enough amber fat to lubricate everything. On the side are sweet-sour “bread and butter” pickles, so called because the Illinois cucumber farmers who devised the recipe in the 1920s were able to barter their pickles for household goods, like bread and butter. This is the kind of vital intelligence I will share with younger companions over a salt beef sandwich when I am a certified alte kaker, Yiddish for old fart. Having just told this story, perhaps I am already eligible for certification.
If so, then bring it on. The sandwich has been served to me at Freddie’s, a valiant take on a New York-style non-kosher Jewish deli. It occupies a space attached to Belle Vue, a high-end retirement complex opposite the Royal Free Hospital in London’s Hampstead. This proximity strikes me as eminently sensible. Occasionally, I hear of colleagues and friends a few years my senior who have retired to the country. This is not sensible. As we get older and bits of us stop working, we do not want to be out in the wilds, saluting every magpie that passes, and luxuriating in the bucolic. We want to be in the heart of things, close to a chemist, primary health care and other people. Ideally, with a New York-style Jewish deli attached, for when we don’t want to cook. Or at least I do.
Jack and Amelia Graham opened Freddie’s, which is named after their baby son, just a few weeks ago. They have set themselves a challenge. Imitating this sort of New York restaurant is not easy, even if they have used typography and a shade of blue which recalls the great Lower East Side stalwart Russ & Daughters (not strictly a deli; it’s what’s called an “appetizing” but let’s not get into that). The real thing has lineage and largesse on its side. I don’t think anywhere serving the jaw-dislocating doorstep salt beef or pastrami sandwiches offered by Katz’s deli in New York would survive here. It would be seen as just too much. It is fashionable to describe Katz’s as a tourist trap. It isn’t. It just attracts tourists and rightly so, because its combination of great sandwiches, scuffed linoleum and gruff meat cutters, flicking samples your way as they slice your serving, cannot be found elsewhere. Monty’s Deli in Hoxton came close and is much missed.
Freddie’s, which opens from 8am until 4pm, is a gentler and distinctly English affair. It is about clean lines, plateglass windows and views out into the garden. There’s an open kitchen and a compact menu for both breakfast and lunch. There’s a small amount of knowing innovation: a Bloody Mary shakshuka for breakfast, a “chippy chappy” sandwich of latkes, malt vinegar, egg and onion and pickles at lunch. But these are adornments to a menu which recognises that it lives and dies by the Ashkenazi classics. There is a deli board with a chopped liver good enough to be argued over. Some might say it’s not as good as theirs. Others might find it a little soft. But it spreads well on the matzah and has just the right balance of earthiness to sweet. The fish balls are dense and just a little sweet too, as they should be. The grated beetroot and horseradish is a mild-mannered version of chrain for those raised on the jarred stuff. The latkes are crisp and hot and salty.
What matters is that the London-cure salmon comes from the Secret Smokehouse and the beef comes from the Ethical Butcher, both top-drawer suppliers. There’s a wide range of bagels, including sesame and gluten-free, and a bunch of schmears or cream cheeses. Build your own sandwich or have one of theirs, which includes a Reuben and a schnitzel zinger. Just like the chopped liver, the whole thing is done with enough commitment to enable aficionados of this repertoire to argue over whether it is up there with the Brass Rail in Selfridges or B&K in Edgware. My view: it’s definitely slugging it out with the competition. It pains me therefore to say that, while the matzah ball is light and fluffy, the chicken soup in which it bobs is desperately underseasoned. It pains me to say this because it’s attributed to Rosemary, the 95-year-old great-grandmother of Freddie. Then again maybe Rosemary was simply following the advice of all the cardiologists across the road in the Royal Free, or looking after the residents of the Belle Vue.
There is a good chocolate mousse made on site, to go along with the bought-in pastries. It is while I am spooning the mousse away that I begin brooding about the fact that this review almost didn’t happen. And now I should warn you that it’s going to take a dark turn. When I first came across Freddie’s I was excited. For all my lack of faith or observance these dishes, kept alive by a vestigial memory of the shtetl, root me. Then I hesitated. Could I really write about a Jewish restaurant given the current political turmoil? Would I get abuse for doing so? Surely better to keep shtum. At which point I knew I had no choice: I had to write about it. The horrendous campaign of the government and armed forces of Israel in Gaza cannot be allowed to make being Jewish a source of shame.
When Hamas mounted their 7 October attack on Israel, they committed both an atrocity and a provocation. With so many hostages taken, there were no good options for the Israeli government. Nevertheless, they managed to choose the very worst one. They have killed thousands, starved many more, destroyed homes and turned their country into a pariah. As it happens, they have also made life for Jews who live outside Israel and have no responsibility for the decisions its government takes, so very much harder. I deplore what Israel is doing. But that doesn’t mean I can “refute” my Jewishness. That is a surrender to antisemitism. And so I sit here with my terrific salt beef sandwich and my chocolate mousse, indulging that bit of my Jewish identity which makes sense to me. It’s not much, but it’s all I have.
News bites
Planning authorities in west London have given the go ahead for a massive kitchen and food hall development in Park Royal. Portal Way, named after the road upon which it will be located, will house 260 dark kitchens, so called because they carry no restaurant branding. They will occupy 10 storeys, which will sit above a two-storey food court. Orders will be ‘shuttled down to the market space via smart food lifts.’ The project, created by Peckham-based architects Dowen Farmer, will cover 28,000sqm and create 1,200 jobs.
Chef Jason Atherton has taken to Instagram to announce the closure after 13 years of his flagship London restaurant Pollen Street Social. ‘It has been a rollercoaster of a ride and a wonderful journey,’ he said. ‘But it’s time for us to say goodbye.’ The restaurant’s last service is on 31 July. Atherton still has six other restaurants in London, as well as various international ventures in China, Dubai, Switzerland, Greece, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines (jasonatherton.co.uk).
And news of an opening: Gareth Bartram, who was head chef for nine years at Winteringham Fields, has announced his first solo venture. Along with his wife, Lucy, he has taken over the Auction House restaurant in Louth, Lincolnshire, which closed last year citing the challenges of rising costs. Bartram says the new venture, which opens later in the spring, will offer both small plates and a set of short tasting menus.
• This article was amended on 31 March 2024 to correct Rosemary’s age.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on X @jayrayner1
