Samuel’s is an all-day cafe for housemade pastrami, smoked salmon, and bagels. But don’t call it a deli.

With an epic brunch just completed, I was about to exit the revolving door at Samuel’s when I heard someone shouting my name (”Hey, Craig! Hey, Craig!”). I cautiously turned around to find a pleasant surprise: an old gym buddy, whom I know only as “Fish,” was waving me over.

“This is my seat!” said Fish, smiling broadly from a stool at the end of the counter near the host’s stand at Samuel’s. “I only eat bread twice a week now, but this is where I come every Saturday and Sunday, straight from yoga class across the street. They make the breakfast sandwich perfectly, and they know how I like it: an everything bagel, scooped, well-done, with cheese and an egg — runny.”

Fish, whom I used to see frequently before the pandemic when I still went to a gym, enthusiastically radiated his fresh-from-yoga-class low-carb glow. I, on the other hand, likely appeared to still be floating in a daze of weekend indulgence. I’d just polished off a plate of eggs and onions scrambled in the rendered fat of kosher beef salami, whose shear rounds glistened atop that fluffy yellow mound like fragrant red buttons. I nibbled more of my wife’s delicious, thick-cut challah French toast with dark Pennsylvania maple syrup than I’d intended. My lips were still sweet with the cocoa syrup hum of a frothy chocolate egg cream.

But no judgment from my pal, Fish. We were just so glad to see each other and kibitz over the details of the house-made bagels and the value of Samuel’s personalized service. (By my second visit, our excellent server, Sara Robbins, knew our drink order before we even sat down.) It was exactly the kind of casual encounter with old friends that’s supposed to happen at a good neighborhood Jewish deli. Samuel’s has already rewired the daytime routines of many near Rittenhouse Square to cross paths there in the three months since it opened, a testament to its early success.

It comes after a series of concept misfires in this ground-floor Sansom Street space above the Schulson Collective’s massive subterranean Italian restaurant, Giuseppe & Sons. Previously, an Italian luncheonette, and then a pizzeria failed to spark. But Samuel’s has seamlessly repurposed the nostalgic decor of pendant lights, tufted booths, and tiled floors into a buzzy brunch niche in Center City, where the lunchtime mojo has struggled elsewhere to return.

Samuel’s also celebrates a return to craft on such elemental ingredients as corned beef, rye bread, nova salmon, knishes, and pickles — so often outsourced at lesser restaurants. All are made here by chef Waldemar “Val” Stryjewksi’s crew to recipes developed by the collective’s corporate team of culinary director Ed Pinello, former Parc baker Nicholas Brannon, and pastry chef Abby Dahan, also a Parc alum.

Just don’t call it a “Jewish deli.” For reasons I still can’t quite fathom, the Schulson Collective insists on using the bland label of “all-day dining destination” to describe this restaurant. It may be named in honor of owner Michael Schulson’s grandfather, Samuel Yoselowitz, who was a kosher butcher in New York. They make the cure and cook all the meats from scratch; bake the bialys, Jerusalem rugelach, and Jewish apple cake, and two kinds of rye (seeded or blended with corn); and even smoke whole whitefish to be whipped into creamy salad. But Schulson is adamant that not marketing it as a Jewish deli will allow them to target the broadest customer base possible: “We’re not trying to compete with Schlesinger’s or Famous 4th Street,” he says.

There’s no doubt Samuel’s strays stylistically from some classic Jewish deli conventions, such as the occasional use of bacon (not unusual in non-kosher delis). Most notably, Samuel’s veers away from the tradition of absurdly large meat portions in sandwiches that are unsustainable from a food cost perspective. Given the current price of brisket, an overstuffed corned beef cliché would cost in excess of $20 a sandwich. Samuel’s has smartly kept its sandwich portions manageable and its prices accessible in the teens. There’s a flavor payoff, too, when ratios are adjusted to showcase each of the carefully crafted ingredients that make a balanced sandwich greater than the sum of its parts, from Brannon’s fantastic rye to a house kraut that still has crunch.

I do wish I liked Samuel’s pastrami better. With only the lightest trace of a peppery crust left on the thin-sliced meat that filled my Reuben, it was, despite a light smoke, too similar to Samuel’s corned beef, taut and snappy rather than the unctuously steamy tenderness other good scratch pastramis around town exude (Hershel’s, Famous 4th Street, Middle Child, and High Street to name a few). I actually preferred Samuel’s other pastrami proteins — the moist and smoky pastrami turkey and pastrami-spiced salmon, whose coriander and black pepper dusted a molasses crust that melted into a puff of hickory fumes.

Try that fish (or the house sturgeon, too) as part of a multitiered tower that can turn even a modest bagel brunch into an event. Brannon’s bagels are plenty good enough to do them justice, with a nice balance of crunch, chew, and flavorful dough, even if they’re not quite as moist inside as some of my local favorites (Philly Style, Vanilya) and their dully varnished exteriors lack some crackle.

Samuel’s rare roast beef is a prime meat dream, its rosy goodness elevated on a sandwich with a dusting of fresh horseradish, peppery arugula, and sour cream. But I loved the brisket sandwich even more, that tender beef cleverly layered open-faced over a slice of corn rye over a mash of carrots from the braise tucked in between.

Some of the best items here are among the starters, like the crispy latkes fried in schmaltz (not a deli, no, not at all...). Give them a “Royale” upgrade with smoked salmon, sour cream, and caviar. The pierogies are excellent, too, as are the flakier-than-usual knishes. But I got to relive my mustard-dipped bar mitzvah boy dreams all over again with the upgraded pigs in a blanket: these bite-sized chunks of puff pastry-wrapped Hebrew Nationals revealed a sheer inner sleeve of garlicky A&H salami.

The fact that Samuel’s has a bar is another distinguishing trait from your usual deli, even if the cocktails do get made with Manischewitz or a can of Doc Brown’s for the celery spritz. (Yum, by the way.) The handful of entrees also trend more diner than deli. I’d absolutely return for chicken pot pie, whose beautiful crust and creamy chicken gravy puts its Stouffer’s TV dinner inspiration to shame. A pickle-brined fried chicken with hot honey was solid, but not a reason in itself to come.

Abby Dahan’s pastry case, on the other hand, is worth the detour. The French-born, Cherry Hill-raised dessert whiz formerly from Parc is turning out the full array of classics, from sugar-dusted linzer cookies to perfectly cakey black-and-whites, jelly-filled doughnut bombs, chocolate-laced rugelach, chewy coconut macaroons, and moist Jewish apple cake made to her mother’s recipe. Dahan’s mother, Laura, is also responsible for the challah recipe that anchors the remarkable French toast, managing to be both moist and fluffy at once.

But it is the chocolate DNA Abby inherited from her dad, Jacques Dahan, president of Michel Cluizel USA, that fuels her most memorable dessert: a Death by Chocolate layer cake so dark, rich, and creamily bittersweet, with the beaded snap of crunchy chocolate pearls on the outside, that it tastes like ...

“It tastes like a dream,” said Sara Robbins as she wistfully cut us a slice to go.

She wasn’t kidding. And no matter what you call that cake, or this Jewish deli dressed in the generic robes of “an all-day restaurant,” it’s good enough to become part of my new routine.

1523 Sansom St., 215-330-2732; samuelsphilly.com

Takeout menu and counter service sandwiches available daily, 7 a.m.-9 a.m. Full menu with table service daily, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Wheelchair accessible.

Reservations highly suggested during weekend brunch hours.

Samuel’s has a few gluten-free options, including house-made gluten-free bagels. They are not yet, however, celiac safe until a new commissary opens that will allow them to eliminate potential cross-contamination.