WHO’S IN CHARGE Granite State deli devotees no longer have to schlep to the Big Apple to get their knish and latke fix.
“It’s a no-brainer,’’ said Gregg Schweitzer, who opened Bubby’s New York Delicatessen in Portsmouth last November. “As far as I know, it’s the only Jewish deli in the state and it’s something the area really needed.’’
Schweitzer, who grew up in Connecticut, frequented New York delis as a child when his family took trains into the city. As a teenager, he worked at his cousin’s kosher catering company.
He has been in the restaurant business in one way or another since high school and, after graduating from Plymouth (N.H.) State University, was a bartender at the Press Room and the Hilton Garden in Portsmouth for the last several years.
“But I always knew I was going to open a restaurant and I knew it would be a Jewish deli,’’ he said.
“Bubby’’ (or “Bubbe’’) is the Yiddish term for grandma. Much of the food here is prepared on the premises — including the matzo ball soup, pickled tongue, and chopped liver — just like she used to do in the old days. The bagels come from a bakery on Long Island, N.Y., and whitefish and lox bought from Acme Smoked Fish in Brooklyn.
THE LOCALE Bubby’s is situated on the ground floor of the former Department of Health and Human Services building. The room has been aptly repurposed with deli-esque white subway tile on the walls, highlighted by black-and-white photographs of the Carnegie and 2nd Avenue Delis. An authentic Eighth Avenue subway sign adds a little more New York street cred. The restaurant seats about 50, including several counter seats, and there is as a deli case.
ON THE MENU Lucky for the guests, you can breakfast all day at Bubby’s on such delicacies as tongue and eggs ($14), the Smoky Fin ($10) — a breakfast sandwich made with lox, smoked whitefish salad, cream cheese, tomato, and red onion on bagel, toast, or English muffin — or Bubby’s creamy blintzes with homemade fruit compote ($8 for one, $13 for two).
For lunch, we enjoyed a generously stacked hot beef brisket sandwich on rye ($13) served with a half-sour pickle — very authentic — and our choice of potato salad, which was delightfully mustardy. We also had a pastrami and Swiss on rye with homemade cole slaw ($14).
The house-prepared brisket and pastrami were as New York deli as it gets, with salty, sumptuous flavors. Perfect.
All that was washed down with an authentic chocolate egg cream ($4) and a Dr. Brown’s black cherry soda ($2.50). Bubby’s also offers wine and beer.
Other stellar sandwiches include the Lower East Side ($14), chopped liver, beef tongue, and red onion on rye; and the awesomely named Yiddish Po’ Boy ($13), crispy breaded chicken livers, tomato, pickles, and cole slaw on a hot dog roll with homemade Russian dressing.
Oh, no. We weren’t done yet. Not before sampling the noodle kugel ($6) for our native New Yorker guest, the litmus test for every bubby everywhere. We were served a honking-big slab of some of the best kugel ever, with a crispy crust, a sweet cheese filling, and plump, warm raisins.
And on our way out we hit the bakery case and snagged a shiny loaf of challah bread ($7) and a perfect black-and-white cookie ($3.50).
Bubby would be proud.
Bubby’s New York Delicatessen, 241 Hanover St., Portsmouth, N.H. 603-373-8981, bubbysdeli.com.
Tom Long can be reached at tomflong918@msn.com.
