This Chef Left Fine Dining and Opened LA’s Hottest New Deli “Mish” Ft. Eric Greenspan

Eric Greenspan has been in the restaurant business for over two decades, worked at El Bulli and Alain Ducasse, opened eight restaurants, won Iron Chef against Bobby Flay, and spent years running Mr. Beast Burger and other virtual concepts. But when his son told him at baseball practice, “All right, Dad, just come back,” he realized he wanted back in. Within hours, he texted restaurateur Bill Chait. “If you want somebody to open a restaurant with you, you text Bill Chait.” A year and a half later, Mish — a modern Jewish deli in Los Angeles — was open. Three weeks in, there’s a line at the door.

Why a deli, and why now

Greenspan distinguishes delis from diners sharply. “Diner is an omelet. Deli is a lox scramble, salami scrambled, latkes on the side.” The problem with many existing delis, he argues, is that they drifted into diner territory. “You shouldn’t get pancakes at a deli. You should get blintzes.” Mish is meant to be a Jewish deli through and through — not an appetizing shop or a diner with pastrami.

The name comes from a cluster of Yiddish words: mishigas (crazy person), mishpucha (family), michina (also crazy). A mural in the restaurant lists them all. “All of those words describe this restaurant in totality,” he says. “That’s fortuitous that it did.”