Maven’s Delicatessen, one of the most anticipated openings of the year, is finally almost here.
The Pawtucket restaurant opens Monday, Nov. 27, with fresh bagels, deluxe, white fish, corned beef sandwiches, Reubens, rye bread, chloe, pastrami, black and white muffins and pickles on every table.
Restaurateur Jason Shugarman is as excited as anyone to open Rhode Island’s first Jewish deli in years.
At a preview press dinner on Nov. 16, Sugarman wanted to show off the dishes for all three meals. He served bagels and luxe bread with red onion, capers, egg salad, tomato and cream cheese for breakfast. One of the sandwiches that will be available all day is the Corned Beef Reuben. Fried salmon with Varnishka (bowtie pasta and buckwheat semolina) and lemon dill sour cream will be a dinner appetizer. Carrot cake and black and white cookies are among the sweet endings.
The restaurant has table seating for 100 plus counter seating for take out. The boxes are ready to be filled with egg salad, lox, white fish, bagels and bread. The kitchen is large and for good reason. They smoke meat and make all types of bread, including rye and chloe.
Sugarman isn’t just excited about the concept, but as a seasoned restaurant, he’s seen demand. Now that it’s almost a reality, he’s also excited about the team he’s assembled. From experienced chefs and bakers to young kids getting their first job, they run the restaurant seven days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Other people critical to Maven’s development include wife Lauren Sugarman, partner Ben Remick, executive chef and partner Jaime D’Oliveira, general manager Sarah Berman and executive chef and bakery manager Scott Taylor.
There’s no mistaking that this is Sugarman’s passion project. He’s loved delis since he was a kid, when he visited his grandparents in Florida, starting each visit at Rascal Wolfie Cohen’s. He had wanted to bring one to Rhode Island for years. Her childhood memories include picture books available for purchase at the counter.
This restaurant opens every day at 7 am and closes at 9 pm on weekdays and 10 pm on weekends. But the space at 727 East Ave in Pawtucket will rarely be empty. Sugarman said the team works all day and night cooking, boiling and baking the bagels and making the bread.
Maven’s will not be a kosher deli. Sugarman wants his Reuben on the menu, and that’s non-negotiable for him. The sandwich, made with corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on rye bread, cannot be kosher because it combines meat and dairy.
One of the reasons modern delis fail, Sugarman said, is that they import foreign products, including commercial cabbage and bread, and don’t make their own. He only buys fresh foods that are great. He puts pickled cucumbers in that list and his bowl includes sour, semi-sour and pickled tomatoes.
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Although Sugarman has visited New York City’s Katz deli and Second Avenue deli for inspiration, he doesn’t use the words “New York-style deli,” he said.
“We will get better,” he said.
Details: Maven’s Delicatessen, 727 East Ave., Pawtucket, (401) 205-8560, mavensdeli.com.
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