Kaufman’s Bagel & Delicatessen
The close-in suburb of Skokie has long been a hub of Jewish culture in Chicago, and it’s here that you’ll find the city’s best traditional deli. Kaufman's is the place you go for a ridiculously over-the-top sandwich and end up stocking your kitchen with half-sour pickles, Nova lox, fresh-baked bagels, rugelach, and tubs of frozen matzo ball soup. I’m kind of partial to “Moise’s Pupik” — a heap of hand-cut corned beef or pastrami on corn rye with spicy mustard. (Pupik means “navel” in Yiddish, and I don’t even want to know.) One of these days I’ll try the “New Jersey Bypass,” a double decker with both corned beef and pastrami. Please note the cardiologist joke.