Sammy’s Is Back, Along With Its Schmaltz

The new room is clean. Dani Luv’s jokes are still dirty.

In name, Sammy’s Roumanian was a steakhouse, but in practice, the subterranean dining room always felt more like a midnight bar mitzvah, or an episode of Twin Peaks if David Lynch had been born Dovid Lipsky, where every customer eventually had to dance the hora. Because of its many fans, as well as all the caddies of schmaltz that dripped onto the floor during its 46 years in business, it seemed as though the restaurant would be stuck in its Chrystie Street basement space forever.

When it closed in 2021, it was as shocking for the dining public as it was for owner David Zimmerman. He says he was depressed for a year or two, especially after he packed nearly half a century’s worth of mementos into his own basement. When he decided to look for a new place, “nothing felt right,” he remembers. “I was looking on the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side, midtown … everywhere. I must have seen a gazillion places.” In time, he did find a spot, a former sushi restaurant at 112 Stanton Street, a few blocks from the original, and after some one-off services in April and May, he’ll reopen in full this June. “Serving lunch is going to be a new thing for us—challah French toast, salami and eggs,” Zimmerman says. But at night, it’s business as usual: flanken, veal chops, tenderloins, and, most important, Dani Luv, the restaurant’s official MC, performing five nights a week, turning “Hey Jude” into “Hey Jew” and catcalling shiksas from the stage.

Manhattan’s greatest showman tells me he’s excited to play Sammy’s again, even if it is a new Sammy’s: “It’s going to be cleaner, but you know what? Give me a few months and we are going to make sure the place looks like crap.”