Sammy’s Is Back, Along With Its Schmaltz

Photo: Hugo Yu

In name, Sammy’s Roumanian was a steakhouse, but in practice, the subterranean dining room always felt more like a midnight bar mitzvah, or an episode of Twin Peaks if David Lynch had been born Dovid Lipsky, where every customer eventually had to dance the hora. Because of its many fans, as well as all the caddies of schmaltz that dripped onto the floor during its 46 years in business, it seemed as though the restaurant would be stuck in its Chrystie Street basement space forever.

When it closed in 2021, it was as shocking for the dining public as it was for owner David Zimmerman. He says he was depressed for a year or two, especially after he packed nearly half a century’s worth of mementos into his own basement. When he decided to look for a new place, “nothing felt right,” he remembers. “I was looking on the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side, midtown … everywhere. I must have seen a gazillion places.” In time, he did find a spot, a former sushi restaurant at 112 Stanton Street, a few blocks from the original, and after some one-off services in April and May, he’ll reopen in full this June. “Serving lunch is going to be a new thing for us—challah French toast, salami and eggs,” Zimmerman says. But at night, it’s business as usual: flanken, veal chops, tenderloins, and, most important, Dani Luv, the restaurant’s official MC, performing five nights a week, turning “Hey Jude” into “Hey Jew” and catcalling shiksas from the stage.

Manhattan’s greatest showman tells me he’s excited to play Sammy’s again, even if it is a new Sammy’s: “It’s going to be cleaner, but you know what? Give me a few months and we are going to make sure the place looks like crap.” Otherwise, it’s the same gig: “People ask me what’s Romanian at Sammy’s, and I say ‘The sign.’” I tell him my Romanian-born grandfather would probably have disagreed, and that Roumanian steak was a term used to describe some Jewish-owned steakhouses in the early 20th century. Luv waves me off and applies some Borscht Belt wisdom to his argument: “There’s no such thing as ‘Romanian steaks.’ It’s like my Jewish girlfriend’s orgasm — it doesn’t exist.”

The main detail that stands out about the new Sammy’s is just how clean it all feels. The old space was dark and lived-in, where the ice-encased bottles of vodka at almost every table provided an air of comfortable debauchery. Does Zimmerman have any plans to try and maintain this new fresh look? He points to the floor and notes it had been painted just a week or so earlier but is already chipping. “Customers always said we were dirty,” he explains. “People didn’t believe how nuts we were about keeping everything clean — when the health department showed up, we always got an ‘A.’”