When Feldman’s Deli got an invitation to the Michelin ceremony in Las Vegas, 28-year-old owner John Feldman thought something was fishy.

“Do I click on this link?” he wondered. “Because we’re just a deli, it’s too good to be true.”

“And I’m like, ‘Well, I’ll just get a new computer if it’s a virus or something,’” he continued, laughing. “Clicked it, and it was real.”

In August, the Michelin Guide awarded Feldman’s Deli the Bib Gourmand, which recognizes restaurants with “great food at a great value.”

Feldman — who took over Feldman’s Deli from his parents in 2023 — said he felt some imposter syndrome at the ceremony, not only representing a casual sandwich shop, but also coming from a kitchen that eyeballs ingredients instead of measuring with the precision you’d find in a high-end kitchen.

But the deli has been reaping the benefits of its nonconventional approach to making its much-loved Jewish comfort food.

Since the Michelin news broke, business has been “crazy” at the New York-style deli, John Feldman said.

But no matter how busy the restaurant gets, Feldman said his family doesn’t want to open a second location.

Instead, he said his team plans to continue thriving in their space at 2005 E. 2700 South by probably expanding into the space next door, and, most importantly, continuing to serve the same food they’ve been serving for 14 years.

“It took me years of learning from my mom on how things should be,” Feldman said. And he wants to keep them that way.

The ‘cooking thumb’

Feldman said out of every 10 people who have come in to Feldman’s Deli in the past couple of weeks, one to two have never been in before, and almost every other person comments on the Bib Gourmand.

“Being here for 14 years, it’s kind of crazy seeing new faces,” Feldman said.

The Saturday after the Michelin announcement was Feldman’s Deli’s second busiest day on record, Feldman said, topped only by the St. Patrick’s Day after the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in 2021.

“The one thing that the Jews and the Irish have in common is their love for corned beef and cabbage,” he said.

On a recent Thursday, Feldman’s Deli was packed with hungry customers, and the noise was cacophonous.

“Every day has felt like our busiest Saturday,” Feldman said.

People clamor for the deli’s half-pound sandwiches (hefty classics like the Reuben and the signature New Jersey-style Sloppy Joe), made from recipes that Feldman’s parents grew up with.

Also popular are his mom’s bagels, creamy potato salad, tuna salad and homemade cake; his great-grandmother’s latkes; and his grandmother’s matzo ball soup.

Janet Feldman worked 80-plus hours a week at the deli, but when she was ready to retire and pass the business to John Feldman, there was a small problem.

None of her recipes were written down, her son said. Instead, she cooked by taste and intuition.

“People that are really good at gardens have the green thumb,” John Feldman said. “She has the ‘cooking thumb.’ It doesn’t matter what she does. It’s just always fantastic.”

In May 2023, after he officially took over the deli, Feldman was in what he calls “recipe boot camp” for about a month.

“My only job while inside the restaurant was to shadow my mother while she was cooking,” Feldman said. He’d be holding his iPad, taking notes “while she was putting in handfuls, pinches, and free-pouring heavy cream.”

The recipes Feldman typed out call for measurements like “‘about a cup,’ ‘three-second pour of salt,’ ‘spice to taste,’” he continued.

Eventually, Feldman went to culinary school to learn how to cook instead of just replicating recipes. But he said the two most important things he’s ever learned about cooking were from his mom: K.I.S.S. (“keep it simple, stupid”), meaning some of the best dishes are made with few ingredients, and the importance of garlic.

“When making my own dishes, I used to ruin so many of them,” Feldman said. “I would think I needed to add something when, in fact, it just needed a little more garlic or salt.”

Running a Jewish deli a ‘dying art’

Feldman’s mom is Polish Catholic, and his dad is “classic” Jewish, John Feldman said. Both are from New Jersey.

Growing up with one foot in Catholicism and one foot in Judaism (and getting both Christmas and Hanukkah as a kid), Feldman said he’s still learning about Jewish food and culture as he runs Feldman’s Deli.

He said he has a Jewish encyclopedia that he refers to when customers ask for a Jewish food he’s unfamiliar with, and he doesn’t speak Yiddish.

But “typically they’re nice and laugh,” Feldman said.

One customer is “a little old lady [who] comes every Rosh Hashana and Passover and Hanukkah, and every time I see her, it’s like a 30-minute conversation of something new that I haven’t learned yet,” he said.

Just like Feldman learned how to make Jewish food from his mom, Utahns have been learning about Jewish food through Feldman’s Deli since it opened in 2012.

It’s not the first Jewish deli in Utah, but Feldman’s Deli has definitely popularized the concept in the Beehive State, Feldman said.

“No one knew before we came, and then all the East Coast transplants were the ones that supported us until Utah found out about us,” he said. “It’s been a lot of education to the community, which has been awesome in itself.”

Feldman’s Deli is also one of the few New York-style Jewish delis left in the United States. The New York Times reported there were about 3,000 Jewish delis in New York City in the 1930s; now there are just a few dozen, according to the New-York Historical Society.

“It’s a dying art, for sure,” he said. (Feldman’s Deli isn’t kosher though; it serves pork.)

Feldman’s Deli has not only been seeing massive amounts of new customers, but it’s coming up on its busy season of winter, when people turn to comfort food like fatty Reuben sandwiches, Feldman said.

He said his team is occupied with preparations, and he’s working to get extra freezer space so he can order more corned beef, pastrami, cheesecakes, babka and black and white cookies from New York.

Between the cold months and the Michelin news, “we have no idea how busy it will be,” Feldman said.

As Feldman’s Deli continues to get busier (“We outgrew this spot about 12 years ago,” Feldman said), he said the partners have already called dibs on a spot that might be opening up next door to them, so they could expand the kitchen and add a few more tables.

As for his mother’s food, even with an expansion, “I think we can keep the quality that my mom wants, and what I want, too,” Feldman said. “But I always refer to her as the standard.”