{"id":993582,"date":"2026-08-10T21:55:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T21:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/993582\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T21:55:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T21:55:28","slug":"eric-greenspans-mish-delicatessen-puts-modern-spin-on-jewish-deli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/993582\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Greenspan’s Mish Delicatessen puts modern spin on Jewish deli"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Some might know him as \u201cthe grilled cheese guy,\u201d<\/a> a face from Food Network, the founder of the Foundry<\/a> and Mar\u00e9<\/a>, or more recently, the opening chef of the infamous Tesla Diner<\/a>. Eric Greenspan has worn an array of chef hats over the last 30 years but with the opening of his long-planned Mish Delicatessen<\/a> in the Fairfax District, he hopes to add another: steward of the Jewish deli.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not the first deli to have opened in the past 65 years, but I do think that what we\u2019re trying to do is different,\u201d Greenspan said. \u201cI don\u2019t take the responsibility of carrying the torch lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took two years to modernize the classics and perfect his pastrami, brisket and turkey recipes. Bagel research brought him to multiple states and another country. He combined a lifetime of Jewish-deli fandom with years of trial and error, resulting in trays of hardwood-smoked, ginger-and-cardamom-scented pastrami beside salads and freshly baked challah; silken-interiored latkes with apple marmalade; wood-fired bagels first boiled in a fragrant spice bath; and a cocktail program involving halva and amba.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Dark chocolate and hazelnut babka at Mish.<\/p>\n

(Stephanie Breijo \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Mish is, he said, his life\u2019s work and \u201cthe absolute most personal restaurant\u201d he\u2019s ever opened.<\/p>\n

But to build it, he had to walk away.<\/p>\n

Greenspan divested from his restaurants nearly a decade ago, when his second child was born; the chef\u2019s \u201call-in\u201d personality, he said, made parenting and running a small restaurant empire difficult to balance. So he sold his Mar\u00e9 restaurants and Eric Greenspan\u2019s Grilled Cheese, but promised that if he ever opened his own restaurant again, it would be a Jewish deli. Then he dreamed of it for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been jealous of those Italian chefs who are like, \u2018This is my grandmother\u2019s tortellini,\u2019 this passion that chefs bring from their own personal traditions,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you look at all the restaurants that I did back in the day, it was always modern-American and fun, quirky stuff and fine dining. It definitely had a personal effect, from my creativity and my training, but it was never founded in culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

What followed were years of appearances on \u201cGuy\u2019s Grocery Games\u201d and other culinary shows, plus consulting gigs for the likes of Mr. Beast Burger and a focus on Greenspan\u2019s continuing cheese company, New School American Cheese, which features on the Mish menu.<\/p>\n

\"Namesake <\/p>\n

Namesake inspiration on the wall of the dining room of modern Jewish deli Mish.<\/p>\n

(Stephanie Breijo \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Then two years ago, while taking his youngest son to baseball practice, Greenspan realized that it might be time to give his children more independence, and signaled his own opportunity to return to restaurants. He called restaurateur Bill Chait, a longtime business associate, and pitched partnering in a Jewish deli.<\/p>\n

Their first space fell through. Then in the fall of 2024 Greenspan\u2019s most infamous endeavor presented itself: a stint at the Tesla Diner, where he joined Chait at the electric vehicle company\u2019s protested drive-in restaurant as a partner and founding chef.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d expected some blowback, but not nearly as much as he received. Things had changed drastically between his sign-on before the 2024 presidential election and Tesla Diner\u2019s July 2025 opening. When Greenspan agreed to the project Tesla CEO Elon Musk hadn\u2019t yet performed his gesture widely likened to a Nazi salute<\/a>. Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had yet to exist and yet to cut hundreds of thousands of federal jobs and millions in aid spending<\/a> both domestically and abroad.<\/p>\n

By the diner\u2019s launch, streams of negative social media comments filled nearly every post from Greenspan and the restaurant. Some called him a fascist and questioned Greenspan\u2019s identity as a Jewish American, given Musk\u2019s salute and antisemitic remarks from Musk\u2019s AI bot, Grok<\/a>. Others surfaced on Reddit boards and other posts reflecting on Greenspan\u2019s involvement; one said he \u201cassociates with douchebags, abusers, and Nazis.\u201d That his Jewish identity was ever called into question, especially as he endeavored to open a Jewish deli, was \u201claughable,\u201d according to the chef.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a Jew for a long time,\u201d Greenspan said, \u201cand I\u2019ve met Elon Musk once.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November he departed Tesla Diner<\/a> to continue building Mish while Chait remained with the project. Greenspan dove back into his deli research. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing that happened is I had to learn how to make bagels,\u201d he said. He traveled to Montreal to sample and learn from the famous St-Viateur,<\/a> and gleaned even more know-how from friend Oren Salomon, the award-winning baker of Starship Bagel<\/a> in Dallas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of specificity that went into this project that I wouldn\u2019t necessarily bring to other projects,\u201d Greenspan said. \u201cI think when you come here, it shows.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Guests <\/p>\n

The main dining room of Mish in Fairfax during a busy lunch service.<\/p>\n

(Stephanie Breijo \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

He and Chait found a new space and began stripping back the more industrial decor from recent occupant Workshop Kitchen & Bar, and restoring more of the natural light and wood of another previous tenant, Odys + Penelope<\/a>. They added a \u201cvinyl room\u201d upstairs, where tables and chairs share space with a record player and plenty of plants. They built a long wooden community table, which stretches down the length of the spacious dining room under the skylights.<\/p>\n

They added a full bar, where Mish partner and veteran L.A. barman Julian Cox<\/a> designed an all-day cocktail and coffee menu that imbues drinks with the likes of amba, smoked harissa, halva and green cardamom. Planned evening service, called Bar Mitzvah and set to launch this fall, will place even more of a spotlight on the drinks.<\/p>\n

Greenspan uses a wood-fired oven for his bagels, which are first boiled in a \u201ctea\u201d of star anise, thyme and peppercorn, inspired by an Alain Ducasse recipe for lobster poached in an intensely seasoned broth. Overwhelmed by styles \u2014 New York, sourdough, Montreal, produce-topped L.A. \u2014 he opted to straddle the line between a few of them.<\/p>\n

\"Two <\/p>\n

Mish Delicatessen\u2019s Bougie bagel involves house-cured gravlax, charred-scallion cream cheese, pickled red onion and Persian cucumber on house-made bagels.<\/p>\n

(Stephanie Breijo \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cMaster Chef\u201d winner Dara Yu is in charge of baked goods, including babka and hamantaschen, rugelach and sea salt black-and-white cookies.<\/p>\n

And Greenspan is finally getting his own grandma moment. His overnight-soaked matzah brei, made with browned butter, toasted black pepper and maple syrup, reminds him of his grandmother\u2019s and the smells that would fill his home whenever she visited. To be clear, he said, his recipe is better than hers, \u201cbut she never worked for Alain Ducasse,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never cooked anything in the first 25 years of my career that sparked an intense connection to my childhood, ever,\u201d Greenspan said, adding, \u201cIt scratches that itch that I was pretty sure I was never gonna get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mish is proving important to Greenspan\u2019s family life in other ways as well. As they grow older, this restaurant is helping his children understand who he is at his core.<\/p>\n

\u201cRunning around a grocery store on the Food Network is not your father,\u201d Greenspan said. \u201cYour father is banging food out of the kitchen. Your father\u2019s touching tables. \u2026 I didn\u2019t go into this business to be on TV and write cookbooks. I\u2019ve enjoyed doing it, I\u2019m pretty good at it. I\u2019ve made a better living out of it than I\u2019ve ever done at restaurants, for the most part. But no, I\u2019m an operator. I like to be in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mish Delicatessen is located at 127 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, and is open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some might know him as \u201cthe grilled cheese guy,\u201d a face from Food Network, the founder of the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":993583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[37],"tags":[398222,57570,398221,185215,116639,57573,210,398220,398219,185216,398223,2539,175586,1182,386069,8463,67,132,68,1628],"class_list":["post-993582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-bagel-research","tag-chait","tag-chef-hat","tag-eric-greenspan","tag-food-network","tag-greenspan","tag-health","tag-infamous-tesla-diner","tag-jewish-deli","tag-mish","tag-mish-delicatessen","tag-musk","tag-nazi-salute","tag-nutrition","tag-opening-chef","tag-restaurant","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117073448247486842","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=993582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/993583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=993582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=993582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=993582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}