Sometimes I think that Hunter Gambill has a bucket full of ping pong balls with different cuisines on them. Every few years, he shakes up the bucket, pulls out a ball, and opens a restaurant dedicated to that cuisine.
Here’s a list of the restaurants he currently operates, has operated, or is planning to operate: Gambill’s Distilling Company (currently open), Gambill’s Pastaria & Grocery (currently open), Gambill’s Wine and Coffee (closed, reopened as the Jewish Deli), Gambill’s Jewish Deli, Gambill’s Tex-Mex BBQ (yet to open), Gambill’s Mexican Brewpub & Ciderhouse (also known as Taqueria Escondido, closed or potentially reopening, depending on who you ask) and “EM: Curators of Craft” (some impossible-to-define barber shop and food space in Stillwater which Gambill either owns, operates or works at: but it’s Stillwater, so it’s none of my business). Relevant to our purposes today is Gambill’s Jewish Deli.
Gambill’s Jewish Deli is one aspect of the HGCU (Hunter Gambill Cuisine Universe), located at 11th St. and Lewis Ave., these days a terminal headache of Progress as Promised as the city works to turn the formerly unremarkable intersection into a thoroughfare worthy of those apartments being built across the street.
Gambill’s Jewish Deli is going to sell bagels eventually, they say, once that apartment building opens, even though they have the word BAGELS in huge letters on their windows. But for now, they sell coffee, wine, a few breads, and two entrées: a $17 sandwich and a $25 sandwich.
Delica-Stressin’
A discussion of the sandwiches at Gambill’s Jewish Deli must reiterate the fact that they are the only proper entrées on the menu. (A paper menu taped to the wall announced the inclusion of a few new, potentially permanent or temporary sandwiches when I visited, but I was there for one expensive purpose, and not to be dissuaded.) There are three sandwich options: the Pauli (brisket, horseradish, and provolone), the Pistol (pastrami, mustard, Swiss, and sauerkraut), and the Hunter (the Pistol with Russian Dressing instead of mustard). A 6 oz variant is $17; a 12 oz variant is a staggering $25; both come with a half-sour pickle and a side.
When I asked my Instagram followers what they thought of the price point, one cried blasphemy. “What is this, Katz’s,” went a reply. Another said, “I understand why it’s so expensive, but read the room.” “In Tulsa?” was a popular response as well. A few mentioned that they had eaten the sandwich, but would not again, due to the price point.
I myself doubted that a sandwich could cost so much to make. The purported reason is labor: a 2-3 week process, the restaurant says on social media, where the pastrami is dry-cured in-house, rubbed with red wine vinegar, smoked, pulled, and steamed before it reaches the deli (a recipe Gambill adapted from Rabbi Dan Kaiman, whose Seventeenth Street Deli pop-up has been serving similar fare for years).
They also like to point to the fact that the 12oz sandwich is 22oz before cooking as some sort of apologia for the price, which, who cares? They also point to the inclusion of a pickle and a side, but the pickle is $0.75 on the menu, and the sides are $2. That would still make it a $22 sandwich. Whatever: It’s a long process, it’s a lot of meat, and you don’t have to buy it if you don’t want to.
Still, people have complained publicly about the price, even leaving scathing reviews on Google for a sandwich they refused to buy. Gambill’s retorts to these reviews on the Deli’s social media pages are both hilarious and weird, screenshotting one vitriolic review along with the same customer’s glowing review of an OKC strip club, saying, “Bet he spent more than $25 at Chyna’s Playhouse.” Got his ass.
Unfortunately, he got my ass too. I went in and ordered a $25, 12 oz Hunter (the one with Russian Dressing), and, look, I have to confess something. It’s a really, really, good sandwich. It’s probably the best pastrami sandwich I’ve ever had. I could only eat half of it, so I took the other half home, and I gobbled up the second half as soon as I felt the tiniest inkling of hunger; I wanted that sandwich again, and I wanted it bad.
For days afterward my brain craved the taste of the meat, which was perfectly seasoned, and impossibly tender. (They cure the meat over at Gambill’s Pastaria, which is a nice homey touch. A lot of the food in Gambill’s is house-made, which I appreciate.) The Russian Dressing and sauerkraut were unobtrusive and added helpful texture and flavor; I found myself mopping up the dressing with the last bits of sandwich like the hungry little freak I am.
Let’s counterbalance with a critique. The bread? It was fine, maybe a little too thin: a necessary vehicle to get the meat into my mouth. It got soggy nearly immediately, but if you eat the sandwich in one sitting—which you won’t—it’ll get the job done. Obviously you could split the thing; it’s the size and approximate density of a brick. And with a side, it lends itself to either a shared meal or a leftover portion.
Gotta Hear Both Sides
I tried two sides: the potato salad and the coleslaw. The potato salad was aggressively normal, mayo-based with a hint of spice, and the coleslaw was deeply cursed: nothing but mayo, as far as I could tell. The half-sour pickle was delicious, perfectly salty and crunchy, and provided a nice change of texture from the melty, fatty sandwich.
In a way, a $25 sandwich feels like a novelty. I’m supposed to tell you if it’s worth it or not, and the horrible truth is that I don’t actually know; all I know is I bought it twice (yes, twice, to make sure I was giving you the right information, and because I’m a hungry little freak), and I might buy it again. It’s a fairly high quality product, however much I want to scoff at it (and do, before I start craving it again).
The bread could be thicker; it’s frustrating to have the sandwich arrive falling apart, when I’ve just paid more than twice as much as I would have paid for a Trencher’s sandwich. But this is something different. Again, you don’t have to buy this wildly expensive sandwich, or its still-wildly-expensive-but-less-so little brother. Just, be sure you eat it before you review it online, or Hunter Gambill will get your ass.
