For too long, St. Louis city has been without a real Jewish deli, arguably since Kopperman’s closed in the Central West End in 2016, since Protzel's and Kohn's are in the county.
Don’t even mention Blues City Deli (New Orleans style), Nomad’s (arancini is Italian) or Pickles (no). Though those places are all good, no establishment is a Jewish deli if it’s not a Jewish deli, and by that I mean it sells legit bagels, a variety of smoked fish that most people haven’t heard of, knishes and kuegels, matzo ball soup and an array of Dr. Brown’s sodas.
Finally, that has changed. On May 1, St. Louis restaurateur Ben Poremba (Elaia, Olio, Benevolent King, Bar Moro and more) opened Deli Divine within the new Delmar DivINe building at 5501 Delmar Boulevard, just within the boundary of the city. Pormeba, who is from Israel but has spent much of his career feeding St. Louisans, understands better than most the pressure that comes with trying to fill that Jewish deli niche.
“Really it was born many, many years ago,” he says. “Really, I [thought] about it in 2016, and I wanted to do this, and emotionally, I wasn’t ready.”
“There’s so many expectations when we did this because so many people, especially the Jewish community, they know everything,” he adds. “And they’ll let you know. Even now, they’ll come in and, ‘Why are you doing this? Why aren’t you doing that?’”
Entering Deli Divine on its third day open at 2 p.m. — an hour before it closed — those expectations, and the excitement surrounding this opening, are readily apparent just based on the number of diners queuing up at the end of the generally accepted lunch hour. They fill the relatively tight space at the front of the restaurant where the line splits between two counters, one for ordering sandwiches and the other for bagels.
A stand holds paper menus for both lines. The bagel menu includes a variety of house creations, like egg salad, whitefish salad, really dilly tuna salad, the Feinschmecker — cream cheese, schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) — herring and more. There are also open-faced bagels served with schmear and a variety of toppings such as smoked fish (sable, sturgeon, lox) and caviar. You can also get herring or simply an order of bagels.
The sandwich menu features deli classics and Poremba creations, such as a variety of pastramis, Reubens and combos and deckers, as in double deckers, where people can combine things to their hearts’ content. This counter also has the aforementioned selection of Dr. Brown’s sodas, knishes (stuffed rolls, kind of) and kuegels (casseroles of noodles or potatoes), and the soups, which Poremba has titled in Yiddish, kreplach (dumplings) and kneidlach (matzo balls) as well as mishmosh (both plus noodles).
“One old lady said, ‘This was the best matzo balls I’ve ever had, better than my mom’s,’” Poremba says. “Another lady said, ‘These are horrible. I drove 35 minutes for the worst matzo balls I've ever had.’ I'm like, ‘OK. Sorry, you feel that way.’”
Another woman walks by and calls out to Poremba, “Delicious. Thank you!’” (The matzo balls are good, but what really gets me is the deeply chicken-y soup.)
Beyond the ordering counter, Deli Divine opens up into a market that Poremba says literally holds thousands of items. Sourcing that was a big challenge as was renovating the space, which hadn’t ever been part of anything like a restaurant before.
They built it from scratch, adding the sewer lines, gas lines — everything. “I think we did a good job making it feel like it’s been here for a while,” Poremba says.
That decor adds to that feeling. It includes the sort of delightful clutter often seen in a long established deli, even a sign reading “famous egg salad” — a bit humorous at a brand new establishment, even if it might be referencing Olio’s beloved egg salad.
Over the windows by a few small tables in the market space are a series of drawings by Poremba’s son of the characters from Among Us, an online video game. “It’s the life of his mind,” Poremba says.
Black and white photos by Joseph Zimbrolt, a family friend and a prolific photographer, adorn another wall. After he passed away, Poremba acquired a few boxes of Zimbrolt’s work, which Poremba rediscovered as he was opening Deli Divine. He notes that there’s a portrait of Zimbrolt at the front of the restaurant.
That all goes to show how personal this all is for Poremba. “This is so close to my heart. My grandparents are from that part of the world,” he says, referencing the European and Eastern European roots of deli fare. “My father was born in Germany, and the story’s very personal.”
The inherent heart of this project fits well with its location in Maxine Clark’s Delmar DivINe, a building intended to be an incubator for nonprofit organizations that hope to better the lives of the people of St. Louis. Poremba thought about all that, hoping that Deli Divine would help draw individuals to a space north of Delmar, where they might not go normally.
He imagined people wondering if it was safe and if there was parking. But then they’d get in their cars and head over.
“You walk in here,” he says. “It's Friday. It's colorful, and there’s music. It smells like grandma's kitchen. And so the experience started before you even showed up.”
The deli is open 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the market from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday through Friday.
This story has been updated.
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