Will the new Belle’s Bagels spark a deli culture comeback?
Lines for Belle’s Bagels have formed down York Boulevard for roughly a decade with fans of the pop-up queuing at a music venue’s walk-up window, then on the patio of a shut-down bistro on York Boulevard, eager to tear into plump bagel sandwiches flush with eggs and schmear and tomato jam.
But this month customers are lining up for the entirely new Belle’s Bagels, Delicatessen and Bar. The full-fledged, all-day deli and cocktail bar with pickle martinis and schnitzel blends Jewish-deli tradition with the modern and sometimes off-the-wall culinary concoctions of longtime friends and business partners Nick Schreiber and J.D. Rocchio.
“We both grew up in the Valley and in Jewish families eating this food, and the whole thing was important to us,” Rocchio said. “We thought that would be cool, but it was never really a plan.… There was a lot of spontaneous fermentation that happened.”
“We started out a little half-sour, we ended up as full sours,” Schreiber joked.
Belle’s was born about a dozen years ago, when Rocchio and Schreiber — who’ve known each other since middle school — bemoaned the loss of some of their childhood-favorite bagel shops. It was mind-boggling that, years before L.A.’s modern bagel boom, a dearth had formed in the city’s bagel scene. Schreiber, who’d worked at a Jewish deli during college in Boston, wondered how hard it could be. As it turned out, it was very, very hard.
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He was constantly tweaking their bagel recipe. They conducted water-minerality experiments. They worked at Beauty’s Bagel Shop in Oakland. Over the years, they’ve adjusted the size, hydration, toppings, air-drying and more. Boiled in malt syrup, the product today — forever a work in progress — balances a fluffy denseness inside with an almost crackling exterior. To them, their bagels are unable to be pigeon-holed into any one style.
“I think for both of us, they’re such a nostalgic food item that plays such an important role in people’s lives,” Schreiber said. “It is something that is just its own love language.”
While roommates, they began running bagels out of their Echo Park home kitchen. As their operation grew, they began baking in La Perla bakery in Highland Park and, eventually, the walk-up window of now-shuttered music venue, the Hi-Hat. When the building sold, they were forced to reexamine their business plans — and considered closing altogether.
Across the street, a griddle-it-yourself Korean pancakes concept called Slappy Cakes was set to take over the former home of French restaurant Côté Est, but when the setup proved a bad fit, given the need for tabletop grills, Schreiber and Rocchio moved in.
Their elation was short-lived. The future bagel shop, which seats about 60 indoors, was far too large to remain only a bagel shop. They’d have to expand their model and menu.
“We were like, ‘Maybe, maybe we can push this into some version of a Jewish deli,’” Schreiber said. “Jewish delis have been closing left and right for years and years.... There’s a reason why a lot of them end up closing, whether it’s people aging out of the profession or just financially being difficult to run. After talking about it for a while, we figured we would regret not trying to do it.”
On Wednesday night, Greenblatt’s served its last pastrami sandwich.
During COVID-19, as restaurants and Jewish delis, such as Greenblatt’s, began to shutter, Rocchio said “the preservationist thing came online.” Their own deli’s walls are plastered with imagery of and from some of the country’s most famous Jewish delis, some closed and others still with us: the bright yellow sign of Ess-a-Bagel, the signage of Greenblatt’s, pastrami from Langer’s. Andy Kaufman, clad in a Jerry’s Famous Deli apron, stands in the kitchen during one of his shifts there. (The iconography extends to broader pop culture, too: Lenny Kravitz, in a framed still from “Entourage,” stands on his cell phone in a synagogue. Photos depict Belle’s Bagels featured in the film “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”)
To support another local Jewish institution, and to mitigate overextending themselves at Belle’s, the duo are sourcing their rye and challah from Bea’s Bakery in Tarzana, which has supplied Los Angeles — and some of its delis — with classic baked goods since 1968.
“If we can step into the tradition, be transparent about where this stuff is coming from, and hopefully all kind of hang on together, there’s some extra meaning there,” Rocchio said. “It’s respecting the people who’ve been doing this forever. They figured out a great recipe, and if it helps us, helps our staff and helps them, then it’s pastrami on Bea’s.”
Defining their own deli meant moving beyond the bagel. Much of their pickup menu remains the same on the breakfast menu, with a few additions. But lunch, dinner and cocktails were new to Rocchio and Schreiber. They wanted a wide-ranging collection of dishes, allowing guests to eat there for all three meals in a day (and, as it turns out, one fan already has).
Chef Matthew Cheeks, formerly of Adamae and Pok Pok, consulted on the menu and worked primarily with Schreiber on the restaurant’s new recipes, resulting in a stable of classics as well as deli-nouveau items such as a beef-and-broccoli sandwich — a nod to both a classic Philadelphia roast pork and broccoli rabe sandwich, as well as the Jewish diaspora’s love of Chinese American cuisine.
The collaboration continued with pastry chef Shelby Blavis, who is vegan, weighing in on plant-based dishes as well.
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Blavis kicked off the Belle’s deli dessert menu with apricot rugelach, black-and-white cookies and cheesecake, which are not vegan, though she plans to expand with new items soon, some of them plant-based.
Bar manager Ron Marinelli, formerly of Bar Stella and Schwartz & Sandy’s, created a cocktail menu of concoctions such as the pickle martini and punny drinks like the Mezcal Tov, where mezcal meets sherry, celery shrub and lime. His Mishegoss Punch, a milk punch featuring sherry, aquavit, apple, date and lemon, is made with an onion bagel.
“We just like having fun with our food,” Schreiber said.
A 40-seat back patio will open when the weather cools. The current menu will grow with more daytime items. There could be blue-plate specials, such as stuffed cabbage.
The more hours and routine begin to feel under control, the more they can play, Rocchio said. Like their bagel recipe, it’s always a work in progress.
“It’ll probably get more normal and more weird.”
Belle’s Bagels, Delicatessen and Bar is located at 5022 York Blvd., Los Angeles, and open Monday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Wednesday to Friday from 7 a.m to 3 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m.
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