La Brea Avenue is a street of long blocks and short memories, and a few blocks north of Third the pavement is hot by noon and half the storefronts have been something else first. At 127 South it is now a deli, and a deli with a thesis. Eric Greenspan likes to say that delis began as community gathering places that happened to serve food, and Mish, which opened in early June 2026, is his attempt to put those priorities back in order.
Patina, the Foundry and a long wait
Greenspan is a familiar name in Los Angeles kitchens. He was executive chef at Patina in 2003, then opened The Foundry on Melrose, which earned a James Beard nomination for best new restaurant in 2007. Television followed on A&E, National Geographic and the Travel Channel, along with two cookbooks, one given over entirely to grilled cheese. His most recent chapter, as co-owner of the Tesla Diner in Hollywood, ended in November 2025, which freed him for this. The idea is older than that. He first kicked it around with the restaurateur Bill Chait in 2016, and the pastrami alone took two years of tinkering with RC Provisions, a Los Angeles producer. Julian Cox looks after the cocktails.
“Pastrami downstairs, records upstairs: the deli as a neighbourhood living room.”
The room
Picture a flight shed that has been won over to hospitality: a light-filled, mid-century masonry building with high beamed ceilings, checkered cement tiles underfoot, and a long communal table and bar cut from claro walnut. It is counter service, so the mood is relaxed, and the crowd runs from families to people who skipped breakfast at home. Upstairs, a loft holds a turntable and a listening lounge, and records are played as whole albums rather than shuffled. It is walk-ins only, daily from eight until five, which makes it a lunch for a group, a long coffee with a laptop or a solo sandwich at the bar.
What to order
Start with the smoked fish platter, the dish to put above everything else: soft bagels, schmears, house-cured gravlax and smoked salmon from Wexler's, plus a whitefish salad with horseradish that is the highlight. The bagels are Montreal-inspired, boiled in honey water and baked in a live-fire oven through the day, so the platter is also the best introduction to them.
Then the sandwich the whole room is named for. The pastrami is hardwood-smoked and hand-carved, thick-cut with smoky, caramelised edges, and it comes in a reuben on schmaltz-grilled rye with fennel kraut, whose faint liquorice sweetness is the clever part. The JTP is the lighter answer: an open-faced bagel with heirloom tomato, pumpkin seed pesto and Jewish chilli crunch, easy to share. Potato latkes are thick, crackly outside and soft within, served with sour cream and apple marmalade. Finish with the chocolate and hazelnut babka, rich enough to count as dessert, sold by the slice or the half-loaf. The half-loaf travels well.
The honest caveat is size. The sprawling menu is uneven: the deli case is mostly unremarkable, with a slightly runny egg salad and a Sephardic chicken salad that runs dry, and the reuben's rye could use more crunch. Go with a plan, and leave the case for the whitefish salad.
Drinks
The banana einspänner, espresso under cream and flavoured with turmeric and saffron, is the favourite, smooth and not too sweet. A lemon halva matcha, a New York chocolate egg cream and a harissa Bloody Mary are also on the list. A weekend cocktail and bar-snacks concept, working title Bar Mitzvah, is in development.
Go at lunchtime, when the sun lies flat on La Brea, the knife is moving at the pastrami counter and the second side of somebody's record is starting upstairs.
- The vibe
- Walnut-and-beam hangar, counter service, vinyl loft upstairs, families to laptop workers.
- The food
- Hand-carved pastrami, honey-water Montreal bagels, fish platter, latkes, babka.
- The drink
- Banana einspänner first; a harissa Bloody Mary or lemon halva matcha after.
- A tip
- Walk-ins only, daily eight to five. Bring a group for the fish platter.
