Pastrami, cheesesteaks and heroes go vegan at this Long Island deli

New York deli, but make it vegan ...

That's the premise behind a new store next to the Oceanside train station.

Secret Vegan Kitchen is sandwiched between a Subway sandwich shop and a Puerto Rican restaurant. But inside, it can feel like a scene straight out of Bushwick. 

Customers line up beside a deli case filled with artisan vegan cheeses and faux meats made in-house by owner Tiffany Gordon.

Near the back, there's a colorful shelf brimming with artisan snack products, like vegan Slim Jims, copycat Snickers bars and all manner of vegan chips and crackers. A sign by the counter declares, "People love to stand against oppression, inequality and injustice ... until they sit down to eat."  

Secret Vegan Kitchen got its start as a pop-up in 2021 and has been building a following ever since. A lifelong vegetarian, Gordon attended a vegetarian-focused culinary school called The Natural Gourmet Institute and has a degree in nutrition, which led her to a career as a private chef. But when the pandemic hit, she started experimenting with the plant-based meat alternatives she'd already been developing for her clients.

She started doing meatless Monday events at the nearby Barrier Brewing Co. in Oceanside, not far from where she grew up in Island Park. Eventually, she realized that to stand out in the crowded vegan landscape , she needed to start making her own deli meats.  

"Pastrami, that was the second meat I focused on. The first one was roast beef. People really wanted a cheesesteak," she said. "I had never eaten pastrami, but I did research on flavor profiles, asked a lot of people. Most of the recipes took three years to perfect." 

Gordon and her team spend all day Tuesdays and Wednesdays, plus several hours on Friday or Saturday preparing the faux meats. They all start with a base of tofu and wheat gluten powder and various spices, but no oils or food colorings, she said. The tofu and wheat gluten powder are mixed together and cooked, cooled overnight and sliced thin on a deli slicer in a process that takes two days from start to finish. 

The menu at Secret Vegan Kitchen, which she opened with her husband Dominick Butera in March, reads much like that of a typical New York sandwich shop: everything from tofu bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches to Italian combo sandwiches and chicken cutlet heroes.

I was surprised to find that the pastrami Reuben ($18) was actually tastier than many standard meat versions I've had in New York. The "meat" wasn't salty and fatty like a traditional pastrami , it was sliced very thin and was delicate. It didn't immediately read as tofu, either; its texture brought to mind a vegetable more than a block of soy. But the proportions of "cheese" and house-made Thousand Island dressing were just spot on. The sandwich was savory, it was creamy, and the bread was great. 

 "As someone who is a longtime vegan and a native New Yorker — and my husband also has been vegan for a decade and born and raised in Queens — I think deli food is our food," Gordon said. "We think about it, like why can’t we still eat it? Why should we have to give up our food because we don't want to eat animal products." 

Secret Vegan Kitchen, 3116 Lawson Blvd., Oceanside, 516-208-3300, secretvegankitchen.com. Open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday through Wednesday.