When it comes to places for coffee and lunch, the people of Victoria Street are now spoilt. Friska, the Woolly Cactus, Baristas…a number of businesses – albeit with very different offerings – are now vying for attention. City Deli is one such business.
The family business is open six days a week: from 7am to 6pm Monday to Friday, and from 9am to 3pm on Saturdays. It’s a surprisingly big space inside, the L-shaped room housing plenty of tables and chairs (although nowhere near enough for the hordes of people buying lunch on the day of my visit), along with a large chiller cabinet, loads of built-in product shelving and a spacious counter area.
The decor…well, it’s “retro meets rustic”: plain wooden tables sit alongside those decorated with newspaper clippings from the 1910s to 1940s, the counter is clad in planks of vintage-painted, pastel coloured wood, and gentle instrumental music gives the place a very pleasant atmosphere. The only thing that somewhat spoils the effect is the jostling for space amongst tables by those waiting for food and drinks to take away, meaning that sitting down during busy periods isn’t the most relaxing of activities.
There’s no denying that the food menu is varied. Along with the sandwiches, salads, paninis and bagels in the chiller cabinet, there’s also a range of hot food available. Jacket potatoes – with a range of fillings – start from £2.95, while diners on the day of my visit had a choice of two soups: chicken massaman, or sweet potato and coconut.
The “In A Box” menu featured chilli and rice along with moussaka (both with veggie options available, and priced at around the £5 mark), while the day’s special of chicken pasanda with popadums, fluffy rice and mango chutney also seemed popular, priced at £5.25.
Along the counter front (and, I was pleased to see, covered with domes) were a range of cakes, including red velvet, carrot cake and a Cadbury and almond concoction.
I guess the “Deli” part of the name comes from the fact that City Deli also offers a small range of items to take home, such as bottled La Mortuacienne drinks, bags of Clifton Coffee and bottles of wine – with most of these stacked on shelves that reach behind the counter, making them hard to really investigate.
At £7.95 for a New York Deli Reuben bagel and a decaf latte to have on the premises, it wasn’t the cheapest of sandwich lunches. And sadly, it certainly wasn’t the best either.
I can’t fault certain parts of my lunch. The bagel was speckled with poppy seeds and was dense and chewy as it should be, while the sauerkraut was lovely and vinegary, still with a crunch, and drained well enough that it didn’t make the bread soggy. The same goes for the dill pickles.
The rest, however, was a disappointment. The label on the shelf in the chiller cabinet stated that the bagel was best served toasted – which the City Deli team did, without actually asking me if I wanted it served in this way. I’m still uncertain as to whether it IS best served toasted, as it turned out to be a bit of a half-hearted attempt…it was only the bagel and the uppermost layer of mozzarella that had any heat, with the remainder of the fillings still stone cold.
The homemade Russian dressing demonstrated a serious heaviness of touch on the spice front, with the heat overpowering most of the other flavours. It was the pastrami that was the biggest disappointment, though: fatty and with barely any flavour, I left most of it on the side of my plate.
As far as decaf coffees go, mine wasn’t bad at all – certainly better than the cup that had been made for me on a previous visit.
City Deli was insanely busy on the day of my visit, but based on my experience, I wouldn’t rush back. Maybe I simply ordered the wrong thing and the hot food is better, but a cost of just shy of £5 for a disappointing bagel isn’t an experience I’ll be repeating.