Best Pastrami in St. Louis (2026)

Adriana's runs its counter and dining room on the same principle as the salumerie next door: keep the line moving and let the food do the talking. The freezer case up front signals a deli that still thinks like a neighborhood grocery, stocked for people picking up lunch on the way home, not just diners settling into a booth. That dual identity, counter and kitchen, is what separates it from the red-sauce dining rooms that get most of the attention on The Hill. The burger and the meatloaf are the plates worth building a visit around.

Both read as straightforward diner cooking done with actual care, the kind of thing a regular orders without checking the menu. The mac and cheese sits in the same lane: dense, familiar, and clearly built to be a side that people order as the main event. None of it is trying to reinvent Hill cooking. It is filling a gap the trattorias do not, offering weekday comfort food in a neighborhood better known for its Sunday sauce.

The room stays busy enough that a Saturday lunch means a line, and the crowd skews toward locals running errands as much as anyone making a special trip. That kind of steady walk-in traffic is the real measure of a neighborhood counter, and it points to a kitchen that has earned repeat business on execution rather than novelty. Pricing sits in the moderate range, which keeps it in reach for a quick lunch pickup as much as a sit-down dinner with the family. The setting matters too.

On a block built around tight bungalows and corner grocers, Adriana's fits the pattern of the deli-and-bakery tier that has always shared space with the trattorias here, not competing with them so much as covering the hours and cravings they don't. For anyone who wants Hill cooking without the reservation, this is the counter that does it.

Blues City Deli runs on the pastrami Reuben, and the sandwich carries the room. Grilled until the rye holds its shape and the cheese pulls, it is the kind of build that separates a real delicatessen from a place that just slices meat and hopes. The roast beef sandwich runs alongside it as the other anchor, piled to the point where the counter staff and the regulars both know it is a two-handed meal. The Italian chopped salad rounds out the board, giving the menu a lane for anyone who wants the deli's flavors without committing to a foot of bread. Cherokee Street's food identity runs mostly Mexican, taquerias and panaderias and carnicerias working the corridor block by block.

A deli built on pastrami and rye is its own thread on that same street, not a contradiction of it, and Blues City Deli holds its ground as a sandwich counter with its own regular trade rather than a novelty next to the tortillas. The counter service format keeps it moving at lunch, and the portions are built for people who want a meal that lasts, not a snack. Pricing sits in the moderate range, the kind of number that makes a stacked roast beef sandwich or a full Reuben an easy call for a workday lunch or a casual dinner. The room reads as a local favorite in the plainest sense: a spot people return to because the sandwich comes out right every time, not because it needs discovery. That is the standard this kind of counter has to clear on repeat trade, and the record here says it clears it.

There is no tablecloth angle to judge and none needed. The Reuben is the draw, the roast beef is the workhorse, and the chopped salad gives the menu range. For a deli on a street known for a different cuisine entirely, that focus reads as confidence, not compromise.