Katz's Deli

Katz's Deli

A cavernous, starkly lit slice of deli heaven, this place proclaims "There's Nothing More New York Than Katz's," and they may be right. Arguably the best deli food in Manhattan, Katz's offers an unparalleled, Old New York scene, hundreds of natives demolishing enormous pastrami sandwiches, knishes, matzoh ball soup, and other reinvented Eastern European specialties, in a sawdust-floored, veritable coliseum of Lower East Side nostalgia and good will. The long counter, once staffed by Jewish locals, is now exuberantly attended by the neighborhoods newer, Latino residents--each man with his own station, for pastrami, corned beef, hot dogs, beef tongue, and more. Katz's was once the capital of a delicatessen empire (sixty operated in the LES alone) that helped launch bagels, lox, and hot dogs into the mainstream American diet. Now, it is most well known as the scene of Meg Ryan's faked orgasm in When Harry Met Sally--and for what has to be the world's best pastrami.