When Andrew Steinberg started
28
his Jewish catering company
early last year, his most popular
item launched him into New
York’s food market scene. Customers
told him to focus on the
pastrami, and he listened.
Steinberg, an Astoria resident for the
past 18 years, has worked in the food
industry since he was a teenager, but
mostly in front-of-house roles. After
co-founding a vendor at Brooklyn’s
Smorgasburg food market, he decided
to branch out on his own.
“I did a couple of other small managing
projects before I realized ... if I’m going
to spend all this time building someone’s
company, it might as well be my own,”
Steinberg said.
The idea for his catering company came
from his background: His father is an
Ashkenazi Jew and his mother is African-
American. Steinberg said he figured soul
food was inundated in New York, but there
was a lack of what he coined “Pan-Jewish”
in the market — food from the diaspora
including European, Sefardi and Israeli
dishes — especially in Astoria. Plus, Carnegie
Deli had recently closed.
“Anything that a Jew eats, I’ll serve,” he
said.
He set out to make his own pastrami,
brisket, Israeli kebabs and babka, a sweet
European dessert made of braided twist
dough.
Despite not having a professional
background in cooking, he’s always been
passionate about it and learned from all
the restaurants he worked at. Food was also
important while growing up in Flushing.
He said his family was competitive about
who brought the best babka to parties —
“babka street cred” was important. He also
watched his grandfather cook pastrami on
his Weber Grill.
FOOD + DRINK
Pastrami
PERFECTION BY DANIELLE BRODY
“Pastrami was a big thing in my
family growing up,” he said.
But he didn’t learn how to make
it until recently. Steinberg turned
to all the information he could find
about how Katz Deli makes pastrami
to figure out his method. He uses
a professional smoker and goes
through a “long, painstaking process”
that involves 10 days to cure the meat
and hours in the professional smoker
— a 12-day timeline.
With feedback from his first
catering customers, he honed his
craft, creating Berg’s Pastrami. He
started at Queens Night Market last
year and went on to sell his products
in person at markets across the city,
as well as Fifth Hammer Brewing
Co. in Long Island City and Queens
Brewery in Ridgewood. He was
the only American chef featured in
the Queens Night Market’s recent
book featuring 50 vendors, “The
World Eats Here.” Steinberg moved
from working out of the communal
kitchen at the Entrepreneur Space in
Long Island City to another kitchen
in the area that has a bigger smoker.
“It was just shocking how it just
went from 0 to 100, and just to see
people lining up, like 20, 30 people
in a queue to wait for your food,” he
said of starting his popup company.
SEPTEMBER 2020