Off The Menu for March 13, 2008

• By CHET FOLKES
• Advocate food writer
• Published: Mar 13, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Since 2005, George’s City Deli has been turning out freshly made soups, salads, sandwiches, quiches and desserts in a cozy corner of a historic downtown building that once housed the studios of Fonville Winans, Baton Rouge’s most celebrated 20th-century photographer.

Restaurateur Rodney “Smokey” Bourgeois, along with restaurant manager Jeanne Gambrell, and her husband, John Huckabay, have created a luncheon establishment serving food that includes authentic kosher ingredients in a setting designed to resemble the no-nonsense feeling of a typical New York deli.

“Smokey wanted to create a New York-style deli, something like the old Sigmund’s that used to be in Baton Rouge,” Gambrell said. “We did research on delicatessens, trying to get the ambiance and the food style. And Smokey brought back menus from delis in New York.”

 Bourgeois said, “We’re the only place I know that sells corned beef and pastrami, all beef, and kosher.

“We use Hebrew National brand out of New York for the corned beef and pastrami, and Vienna Brand out of Chicago for the beef roasts,” he said.

The restaurant is in a two-story building at 667 Laurel St. at Seventh Street. Constructed about 1900 for the Masonic Order of Baton Rouge, it was purchased by Winans in 1943 who used it as his photographic studio for some 45 years.

The building is currently owned by James Dodds, who uses most of the space for his architectural offices.

 The brick-and-stucco structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The 16-seat restaurant with 12-foot ceilings features three glass display cases for food, a small corner bar serving imported and domestic beers, several high tables and wooden counters lining the walls.

Open at 10:30 a.m. weekdays for lunch, the eatery offers all  the classic deli dishes, such as corned beef, salami, beef pastrami, turkey, chicken salad, tuna salad, coleslaw, sauerkraut and cheesecake. In addition, the menu lists ham sandwiches, smoked pulled barbecue pork,  fresh salads with a choice of nine dressings, and a large offering of desserts.

“Normally I have a soup du jour, primarily organic and vegetarian, such as a Roma Tomato Bisque,” Gambrell said.    She offers chilled soups during the summer, such as vichyssoise and gazpacho. Soup prices are $4.25 for a cup, $5.50 for a bowl.  

“I make most of the food such as the quiche, all of the soups, all the desserts, except the cheesecake, and the salads, such as tuna, chicken, egg, shrimp and potato,” Gambrell said. “We make most of the salad dressings in-house.’’

Gambrell also offers several  dishes with a Louisiana spin, such as crawfish stew, as a special, and a shrimp salad with chopped, hard-cooked eggs, seasoned in a light mayo-and-white pepper sauce ($8.95).