Sami & Susu – a Beersheba name, reinvented on Orchard Street

On a narrow stretch of Orchard Street, where the Lower East Side still smells faintly of pickle brine and old pastrami shops, Sami & Susu has turned two friends' family recipes into one of the most talked-about small restaurants in Manhattan. Co-founders Amir Nathan and chef Jordan Anderson met working the line together at Maison Premiere, and what began as a roving lunch pop-up during the darkest months of the pandemic became a brick-and-mortar wine bar that now serves dinner every night of the week. It holds a Bib Gourmand in the MICHELIN Guide, a distinction awarded to cooking that is carefully made and reasonably priced, and the restaurant has kept it in every edition since. The kitchen's register is Mediterranean with a distinctly Jewish and Middle Eastern accent, built on the dishes Nathan and Anderson grew up eating in Be'er Sheva and in an Ashkenazi household outside the city.

01The room and the setting

The space is genuinely tiny. One account of a visit counted roughly twenty diners sitting elbow to elbow at marble countertops and wooden benches, with the open kitchen's reach-in freezer visible at the back of the room. Another description puts it at seven tables under warm, dim lighting, close enough that service feels personal rather than staged.

Before Sami & Susu, the address had a previous life: the storefront on the northern end of Orchard Street was once New Territories, an ice cream parlour, and Nathan and Anderson acted as their own general contractors during the build-out. The kitchen itself is improvised by professional standards, remembered by one writer as a workspace without even a proper gas stove, which has not stopped it producing a full dinner menu of small and large plates.

02The chef and the owner

Jordan Anderson is co-founder and executive chef. Before Sami & Susu he worked as chef de cuisine at Maison Premiere, sous chef at the Breslin, and in kitchens under Galen Zamarra at Mas (farmhouse) and Greg Baxtrom at Olmsted, a résumé that explains the technique sitting underneath the home-style dishes. Anderson was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 food and drink list for his work here.

Insider tip

Tiny room, reservations essential, dinner served every night of the week.

Amir Nathan, born and raised in Be'er Sheva, Israel, spent over a decade in New York kitchens including Maison Premiere, Via Carota and Café Mogador before opening Sami & Susu with Anderson. His own family history runs deep in the neighbourhood: his wife's great-grandfather ran a butcher shop on nearby Delancey Street in the early 1900s. The restaurant's name is a tribute to Sami & Susu, a no-frills Romanian steakhouse in Beersheba that Nathan's family frequented, itself named after an Arab-Israeli children's television programme from the 1960s and 70s that symbolised peace and unity.

03The cooking and what to order

The dinner menu moves between Jewish-Ashkenazi dishes from Anderson's childhood and the Sephardic and wider Mediterranean flavours Nathan grew up with, translated by Anderson into chef-driven plates that change through the seasons. Among the dishes that keep regulars coming back are muhammara, lamb kebab, branzino, hanger steak, a beef tongue sandwich, squash blossom falafel, Roman gnocchi and a brown-butter crudo, alongside family heirlooms such as a stuffed cabbage built on an eggplant base and a chicken soup made to a recipe from Anderson's mother, Julie.

Earlier incarnations of the menu carried Nathan's grandmother's Turkish rice pilaf and a rolled boureka with bacon, egg and cheese for the morning service the restaurant once ran; today's version is dinner-only, but the instinct for dishes with a direct family line remains the engine of the place.

04Wine and drinks

Sami & Susu describes itself as a restaurant and wine bar, and the list leans toward the kind of low-intervention, natural bottles that suit sharing plates over a long table rather than a formal pairing menu.

05The neighbourhood

Orchard Street sits at the centre of the old Lower East Side garment and pushcart district, now reshuffled into small restaurants, vintage shops and galleries, with Sara D. Roosevelt Park a short walk away for anyone who wants to carry food outside. The closest subway hub is Delancey Street–Essex Street, served by the F, J, M and Z trains, a few minutes on foot from the restaurant's door.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.