Larkspur’s new Loveski Delicatessen
And does love actually make a difference in your food?
Note to readers: I’ve been super busy lately with work, life and rowing. Sorry for the sporadic posts. I hope to reenter the delicatessen circuit in 2024 because I do rather enjoy this.
In 1996, while fixin’ to wed my now wife, she and I read a book called “Como Agua Para Chocolate” – Like Water for Chocolate. Penned by Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel, it’s a beautiful fiction about (among other things) how your emotions get into your food as you cook.
Early on in the story, the main character Tita cries into the batter of a wedding cake intended to celebrate her sister, who is marrying Tita’s lover. Upon eating the cake, the entire wedding party is overcome by heartbreak over their lost lovers and dissolves into a giant puddle of tears. Not a literal puddle - that was a metaphor. Stay with me.
Stories of magical realism like this are especially common in Latin American fiction, and I found this hypothetical emotion-food connection rather fun to ponder. So it stuck with me through the years. Other people seem to like this idea, too. And it even has some research behind it.
Masaru Emoto has carried out very interesting experiments with water at the critical point for freezing. He claims that words expressing emotions affect the crystals formed in the process. Emoto reports that words with positive emotional content produce beautiful crystals and those with negative emotional content generate ugly ones. Also, music and even pictures are reported to have similar effects.
OK, yeah. That’s some ridiculous ooga-booga voodoo science right there. Which goes to show that not everything posted on ResearchGate is kosher. And Masaru Emoto’s biography helps support the point that the labels “pseudoscientist” and “best-selling author” are two things that DO often go together. And THIS goes to show you that, once again (and this is a well-proven fact), people are fucking stupid.
Yet, to put a fine point on that last factoid, I’m still fond of the idea. So when people say, “I made this with love,” I do like to think that, by eating it, I’m eating their actual love. Which HAS to have some kind of positive health benefit, right? It’s not like eating love would be bad for you, would it? There (probably) isn’t a single person laying a hospital bed somewhere with a chart that says, “Patient appears to have consumed excessive amounts of love, can not stop pooping rainbows.”
Putting that aside, one COULD make a (somewhat) rational argument that cooking with love in your heart does make the food better. The love you carry – as you sashay about the kitchen to the soundtrack from “The Sound of Music” – tends to increase your focus, make you more attuned to the subtle flavor interactions of the ingredients, and make you more precise in your movements and measurements. And these love-born psychological byproducts do make you a better chef. Which begs the question: does love make you better at everything you do? Probably.
Loveski’s in Larkspur
Marin doesn’t have many good Jewish delicatessens. One could even say, without getting much pushback, that it has exactly zero of them. This has been a sad fact for both the 13% of the Marin population who identify as Jewish and the people like myself who like/love much of the cuisine of the Jewish diaspora.
So when I learned that Napa’s much beloved Jewish delicatessen Loveski was going into the empty hole in Larkspur’s Marin Mart left by Marin Brewing Company (sniff), I was salivating with anticipation. Apparently a lot of other Marin-ites were too because the place was jam-packed after only one month in business. We even bumped into a couple of Marin Rowing buddies, Rob, and his wife, Allie.
Originally launched in Napa by Christopher and Martina Kostow, Loveski is billed as a “Jew-ish” deli. And it has primo bone fides. While chefing at Napa’s famed Meadowood, Christopher became one of the youngest to ever receive three Michelin stars. This is no ordinary delicatessen.
I took my son Nick (21) there last week and what struck me first was the branding. Most delicatessen owners don’t know two things about branding. But these guys took the whole course and then some. Plus, they hired San Francisco’s award-winning Pavement Design to do the work. Interestingly, Pavement’s stated approach to the branding was inspired by the couple’s story itself. Here’s a snippet:
“With elements of Martina’s Thai upbringing and the sensibilities of Christopher's acclaimed cooking techniques, the result is iconoclastic and artisanal, while remaining grounded in the traditions of Jewish delicatessens. To match this avant-garde spirit, an irreverent brand identity system was conceptualized around whimsical illustrations of humanized menu items. The restaurant brims with freshness, while the identity as a whole feels inclusive, humble, and youthful, qualities sometimes lacking in the more traditional establishments of Napa Valley.”
Which is an explanation that could easily have been reverse-engineered to fit the solution, but hey, lovely thought.
Made with love, allegedly
One of the most quoted commercials in the history of Israeli TV belongs to hummus manufacturers Tsabar: “Hummus is made with love, or not made at all.” While I’ve always liked the sentiment of this oft-used “made with love” slogan, I do have a lot of questions. Like, who was the love originally intended for exactly? What kind of love are we talkin’? Is this romantic love? Universal love? Uncommitted love? Pragmatic love? Because if we’re talking pragmatic love, I think I’d rather you keep that to yourself thank you very much. And I imagine that eating romantic love that wasn’t intended for you would just be confusing. In fact, I sense that a lot of kinds of love I would rather not have in my body. None of this is explained or explored on Loveski’s website. Sad face.
Loveski’s food
That was a long preamble, so I’ll skip right to the headline and say that the food was pretty righteous. The menu features much of the traditional foods you expect from a Jewish deli: Bagels, matzo ball soup, corned beef on rye, brisket, reuben, latkes, whitefish, lox, and house made pickles. But they also feature scrambled egg matzoh brei (pastrami and cheddar scramble) miso and fermented onion shmear, and a few other intriguing twists on the traditional fare.
I got the Loveski Reuben on toasted and buttered rye with hot corned beef, swiss, white kimchee, and gochujang dressing. And I gotta tell ya, it was SOLID. The gochujang (Korean chili paste) and kimchee (in place of sauerkraut) were not as overpowering as you might think. The thinly sliced corned beef was the dominant ingredient and it was good and fatty. The other ingredients served well as a Russian dressing stand in and provided a spicy, earthy undertone that balanced the flavor of the meat. Rob’s wife Allie is a proclaimed connoisseur of Reubens and she agreed that it was really really good.
I also got the house made pickle and I was surprisingly disappointed. T’was very bland and I suspect not altogether finished being pickled. Kind of an abomination, really. I’ve had a lot of Jewish deli pickles and this one's at the bottom of the barrel.
Nick got the braised, shaved brisket with onions, pickled vegetables, horseradish mayo, and au jus. With a sweet tang, the au jus was better than some we’ve had and the sandwich overall was well-balanced. The roll had a crispy outer crust, but was not too hard as to impact the experience. The pickled veggies were a nice touch (and increasingly common in deli sandwiches). But overall, the brisket sandwich was a disappointment. Rob was also disappointed.
The prices are high, and I’m sure this will be a topic of conversation in their Yelp reviews (it always is). But in Loveski’s defense, they are paying very high rent and they’re also not the most expensive delicatessen in the Bay Area. That honor is shared by Saul’s in Berkeley and Mark & Mike’s at the SF Ferry Building.
Okay, so was it made with love?
Hey look, it was very good. And I’m not about to pretend to know the hearts of strangers. But I do have my doubts as to whether the “made with love” bar is one you can consistently hit as a restaurant. I think perhaps the recipes were formulated with love. The branding clearly has a lot of love in it. But the vibe I got being in the joint was more about efficiency than love - which they very much are. Made with love? You be the judge.
On the side
The Best Sandwich Shops in the Bay Area? I tend to avoid reading “best of” articles. My theory is that nobody… NOBODY has tried ALL of any one thing. But as someone who’s been to over 50 delis/sandwich joints in the last 3 years, I found this list (shared with me by David Swope - thanks Dave!) to be pretty damn good. Many of my favs are listed including Palm City (SF), Troubadour (Healdsburg), Sandy’s (SF) and Deli Board (SF) are listed.
Bagel Eating Contest: Major League Eating (helloooooo rabit hole) announced the return of the Siegel’s Bagelmania World Bagel Eating Championship! #1-Ranked Competitive Eater and future coronary sufferer Joey Chestnut and other top-ranked Major League Eating athletes are slated to compete on Saturday, January 13, 2024. The event takes place at 11 a.m. at Siegel’s Bagelmania, 252 Convention Center Drive, Las Vegas, NV. Because of course it’s in Las Vegas.
Deli meats starting to get healthier? Doubtful, but they claim to be. I’d say your best bet is still to go to delicatessens, like Loveski, that prep their own meats. This has been a public service announcement.
