Zane Caplansky is not your average deli man, if there ever was such a thing. After a peripatetic culinary career which has included opening a tea house on the steppes of the Himalayas to managing an Indian pizza restaurant, Caplansky has now brought smoked meat manna to Montrealers living in the otherwise desert of corned beef-oriented Toronto.

A Toronto native, Zane’s been hooked on smoked meat since he was 16, when his then girlfriend took him to the famed Schwartz’s Deli in Montreal. A die-hard fan since, he has even been known to sneak away from ashram study north of the city to get his Schwartz’s fix. Now, he has brought the house-cured and smoked tradition to a tiny but fully outfitted kitchen in downtown Toronto, which includes an in-house smoker—a rarity today.

At Caplansky’s, Zane hand cuts each brisket and uses only local beef and bread and pickles made in Toronto. Also on the menu are homemade soups—borscht and matzo ball (he’s still tinkering with the recipe for the fluffiest balls)—and, to make the artery-clogging deli experience complete, addictive hand-cut fries.

Is it any surprise that Caplansky’s sold out on opening day last month? Zane had to close for nearly a week to allow for his briskets to cure and smoke in due time. And just this week, Zane was featured in NOW magazine as having one the best sandwiches in Toronto.

In fact, something larger is at work here. Deli downtown? Most mom and pop shops and delis remain all but faded memories and nostalgic reveries of things past. Toronto, like most North American cities, lost its downtown Jewish immigrant food culture when suburbia became the norm for families in the postwar period. But what we are witnessing here is nothing short of a return migration.

Joining Caplansky’s downtown is Bagel World, an old Toronto lunch counter set to open a new branch on Bloor Street, in the heart of the old Jewish quarter. While some people have charted the death of the deli across North America, most notably David Sax over at Save the Deli, I can’t help but wonder if this is the beginning of a renaissance. In this era of vintage klezmer hip hop and other new takes on tradition, this might just be the latest in re-gifting Jewish trends.