A Delicatessen Does Local
Mercer’s Takes Traditional Fare in its Own Direction
Ben Lloyd is always a chef-on-the- move in his successful Wayland Square bistro, The Salted Slate. But there’s even more hustle these days, with the opening of a second eatery around the corner: Mercer’s Delicatessen.
Mercer is Ben’s grandmother’s maiden name, and the made-from-scratch items are a tribute to her cooking, though hers was not Jewish. That cuisine, however, has contributed much to a traditional deli: the cured meats, the half-sour pickles, the chopped liver, the rye and pumpernickel, the knishes—and that’s much of what is on the menu at Mercer’s.
“We do all our curing here at the Slate, and about a year ago we started tossing around the idea of a sandwich shop,” Ben explains. “We had been making latkes with a half-sour slaw, two eggs and tongue pastrami-style for our brunch, and it was a big hit.”
Ben and his business partner made a tour of New York delis before opening Mercer’s, “just to see how our stuff compared,” and they found huge differences among them.
“Many people who walk through our door come with 40 to 50 years of expectations,” he says. “If we’re lucky, it will just match that. At worst, it’s not reminiscent of that.
“That was something I hadn’t expected,” he continues. “The historical personal emotion.”
Nonetheless, Ben puts his personal spin on some foods and bows to customer pressure on others. Finding some New York knishes “almost plain” he has added mustard to the potato filling—“I like a handheld thing that has some guts to it!”
He seasons his chopped liver with clove, mace and thyme, plus port and brandy, making it less “liver-forward.” But it’s a customer favorite.
On the other hand, he was getting complaints about the tongue being smoked, so he stopped smoking it. The Reubens are the most popular, including a chicken variation. As for the pastrami—some customers praise it for being the closest thing to a New York pastrami sandwich in Rhode Island, while others might expect it to be the towering sandwich found at New York City’s Carnegie Deli.
And then there are the pickles and slaws. One unhappy soul let her negative feelings about the pickles echo across the restaurant. But Ben knows that there’s a lot more sugar in the coleslaw, potato salad and even pickles in New York.
“I didn’t open a food joint to re-create stuff necessarily the way it was done for a 100 years,” Ben says, with a smile. “I think there’s something interesting in taking a classic and doing a slight riff on it.”
At Mercer’s, Ben still emphasizes food from local producers, including the house-cured meats from Pat’s Pastured and Blackbird Farm. Wayland Bakery is making his rye, pumpernickel and Kaiser rolls; the Salted Slate staff make the black and white cookies, rugelach, biscotti, et al. Veggies are from local farms; the chicken from Bell & Evans in Pennsylvania.
In the near future, Ben hopes to have his own relish and mustard available at the deli, and he’s planning eventually to make his own potato chips. Always on the move!
Mercer’s Delicatessen 485 Angell St., Providence 401.443.5249; MercersDeli.com Tu–Sa, 11 am–7 pm
