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Langer’s Delicatessen-Restaurant has stood at the corner of Alvarado and 7th streets in Los Angeles’s Westlake neighborhood since 1947, diagonally across from MacArthur Park. Its official website calls it “the home of the world’s best pastrami and the famous #19,” a sandwich of hot pastrami, coleslaw, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing on double-baked rye. The deli is still run by the founding family, it has twice been honored by the James Beard Foundation, and the No. 19 has drawn praise from critics for decades.

Video: Watch Langer’s Deli Owner Norm Langer Prepare Their Legendary Corned Beef & Pastrami Sandwiches | Goldbelly

Al Langer and the Famous Deli

Al Langer grew up in Newark, New Jersey, and the Jewish Journal’s 1997 profile says he worked in a deli at age 12 to earn money for his bar mitzvah. Langer’s own telling gives a younger start: Al began as a busboy at age 11 and became a sought-after counter man, hand-slicing pastrami in a skill the deli calls a lost art. The Jewish Journal reports that he moved to Los Angeles in 1937 and worked at Lax’s on Hollywood Boulevard, where he met Jean, a Chicago native who was waiting tables. They married on April 20, 1941.

After the Second World War, Al bought a 12-seat shop called The Famous Deli near 7th and Alvarado, according to the deli’s story page. The deli’s facts page gives the founding date as June 17, 1947, and says Al and Jean Langer started the business there and have stayed at the same location since, though in a smaller space than today. Accounts of the years just before differ in small ways. The Jewish Journal says Al opened a first deli on 8th Street in 1943 after borrowing $500 on his Army discharge, while the Santa Monica Daily Press, in 2011, dates the deli to 1947 and describes its humble beginnings sixty-four years earlier. All of the sources agree on the corner and on 1947.

Hands slicing warm pastrami with a long knife on a cutting board at a deli counter.

The family business

Harry and Rose Langer came from Odessa in 1905, and their sons were Joe, Al and Morris. Al’s son Norm later took over the management, and Norm now runs the deli with his wife, Jeannette, as the story page describes. The Jewish Journal said Norm was born in 1944 and his sister Laurie in 1951.

Norm Langer told the Santa Monica Daily Press that he works six days a week to keep his father’s standards, and that he is there to “watch the product.” The paper quotes him saying the pastrami goes out the way his father originally prescribed it. Reporting on the deli’s anniversary, the Los Angeles Local quotes Norm: “I want customers to feel that it’s no different today than it was 50, 60, or 70 years ago.” The same article relays Al’s guiding principle as giving customers the same product on any day that it gave them on opening day.

Growth on one corner

The deli began small and grew in steps. The Los Angeles Explorers Guild puts the original shop at 12 seats and the current dining room at 135. Uber’s 2017 newsroom post on the deli says the restaurant took over the space next door in 1950 and a former bank on the corner in 1968. The Jewish Journal’s 1997 count of seats was 140, so the figures vary by source and year.

The neighborhood changed around the deli. The Explorers Guild writes that it first served Westlake’s Jewish immigrant community and that business declined as residents moved away, with a hard stretch in the early 1990s. Then the Metro Red Line brought new customers. The deli’s facts page notes that it is one block from the Westlake/MacArthur Park station, and the Jewish Journal quotes Jean Langer on that era: “We were almost ready to close.” The sources give the station’s opening as 1993 (Jewish Journal) and 1994 (Explorers Guild).

Langer’s also lays claim to a service innovation. Its facts page says the deli pioneered curbside pickup at its Alvarado location in 1990.

The pastrami

Langer’s pastrami is made from a steer’s navel, which the deli says is specially cured, smoked and steamed, then served at a “specific temperature” to preserve its flavor. Food Republic adds that the meat comes from RC Provisions, which prepares it to Langer’s recipe and does not sell it to others, and that Langer’s steams it in house.

The steaming time is reported three ways. Food Republic gives 2.5 to 4.5 hours, the Explorers Guild about three hours, and the Uber post four to six hours. Each source ties the length to the same result: the meat becomes tender enough to be cut by hand and not by machine. Norm Langer’s own phrasing, as the Uber piece records it, is that the pastrami is “hand-cut because it is steamed for 4-6 hours.” Al Langer’s knife work was central to the deli’s reputation, and the Jewish Journal quotes him: “I can handle a knife. You can’t be taught that.”

The totals reflect decades of cutting. The Santa Monica Daily Press cited four million pounds of pastrami in 2011, the deli’s facts page now says more than 8 million, and the Uber newsroom post says more than 10 million. The dates and counting methods are not the same, and the sources do not reconcile them. The Daily Meal describes the meat as cured, seasoned and slowly smoked, then thinly sliced for a hot pastrami served on rye with Gulden’s deli mustard.

A loaf of caraway rye bread with fanned slices, one slice toasted golden brown, on a wooden board.

The No. 19 and the double-baked rye

Al Langer created the No. 19, per the deli’s story page, and it is still the most popular item. Langer’s lists it as hot pastrami, coleslaw, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing on baked rye. The Los Angeles Local puts its creation in the 1950s, after Al’s return from the war, while the Uber post says he created it when the deli opened and that the recipe has not changed. That article describes nearly a half-pound of hand-cut pastrami, homemade coleslaw, Russian dressing and two slices of Swiss.

The bread has its own story. Food Republic reports that the rye comes from nearby Fred’s Bakery, baked to about 80 percent, and that Langer’s bakes it again to finish, which gives the bread its crisp crust. The deli’s facts page gives the oven conditions as 350 degrees for 30 minutes. According to Food Republic, Al developed the technique while running a Palm Springs deli, where bread shipped from Los Angeles tended to go stale. The story page says he re-baked stale rye to restore a warm, crisp crust, and that Langer’s still uses the method.

Other menu items include corned beef, chopped liver, platters, and pastrami served alongside breakfast eggs, according to Food Republic. The Daily Meal lists lox and cream cheese, potato pancakes, soups and desserts.

Praise and awards

The deli’s website quotes a passage from Bill Addison that says the No. 19 “should be named the official sandwich of Los Angeles.” The Los Angeles Explorers Guild attributes the same argument to a Los Angeles Times list by Addison. It also cites Jonathan Gold in L.A. Weekly in 2009 calling Langer’s pastrami the best in America, and an essay by Nora Ephron in The New Yorker in 2002. The Daily Meal quotes Ephron as calling it “the finest hot pastrami sandwich in Los Angeles” and “a work of art,” while the Explorers Guild renders her line as “in the world.” The sources do not agree on that phrase.

The James Beard Foundation recognized the deli with its America’s Classics award in 2001, a fact stated by the deli’s facts page and by Food Republic, which quotes the foundation’s description of the award as honoring “food that reflects the character and cultural traditions of its community.” David Shaw, writing for the foundation, called it a place serving what many deli aficionados on both coasts consider the best pastrami sandwich in America. Langer’s says it received the award again for 2020, describing it as “as high of an honor as there is in the culinary world.” The Los Angeles Local adds that the deli has been recognized twice by the Michelin Guide.

Readers interested in how another pastrami deli grew up on the other coast can compare the story in the profile of Katz’s Delicatessen.

A sunlit Los Angeles city corner beside a park with palm trees and a lake in the distance.

Location and ordering

Langer’s is at 704 S. Alvarado St., Los Angeles, CA 90057, and the official site lists a phone number of 213-483-8050 in its page header. The story page gives hours as Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the Explorers Guild also reports a line at busy times. The website lists curbside pickup, delivery through Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub, and nationwide shipping through Goldbelly. Hours can change, and the deli posts holiday closures on its site. Food Republic adds that Langer’s sells home kits for its pastrami and corned beef sandwiches, which include rye bread and mustard, and that Goldbelly ships the No. 19 to the United States and Canada.

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