NEW YORK CITY
March 23, 2025

STRANGER: Dani Luv
LOCATION: Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse, 112 Stanton Street, New York City
THEME: Laughing along with a landmark restaurant’s wisecracking singer

“Last night was crazy, it was hot,” says Dani Luv.

The 68-year-old lounge singer is recalling another fun, chaotic Saturday night at Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse. While the restaurant, a New York institution, has changed locations a few times, Dani has been a constant fixture. From an electronic keyboard he tells Borscht-belt style jokes while crooning songs from the likes of Frank Sinatra, but with a comedic twist.

Think Rodney Dangerfield if he was known for carrying a tune.

That act has drawn generations of loyal customers at Sammy’s. They come for the stomach-busting steaks, chopped liver, vodka bottles frozen in ice and more, but stay to dance, sing and hope Dani wisecracks with them. “Last night, there was this 90-year-old woman, she turns around and I said, ‘What a tuchus’ – Yiddish for ass, she said thank you.”

We’re meeting at Sammy’s the day after the lively Saturday night. It’s a few hours till opening, which allows enough time to interview Dani and sample of the menu highlights. Later this evening, he’ll be performing again, and back next week for several nights of showmanship. He works at a pace that would put some people half his age to shame.

When I walk through the doors of Sammy’s latest address on Stanton Street, he’s there to greet me. Wearing a burgundy button-down shirt and black slacks, he flashes a warm smile, with kind eyes that have a playful glint. His black, curly hair wraps round his head like a fraying horseshoe, with each strand going in various directions. The overall lookalike is a more boyish Zero Mostel.

His look, song list and shtick haven’t changed much in the 20-plus years he’s been the headliner at Sammy’s, but that’s part of the appeal for regulars and newcomers alike.

“New Yorkers are good with taking a joke, and the tips are very, very generous,” Dani says. “People come from other countries in Europe, I say, ‘Where are you guys from?’ They say France. I say, ‘No tips tonight, we’re fucked.’ And after saying that, they’re tipping.”

That throwaway line is the kind of banter he sprinkles in-between his songs. But it’s never with malice or hate, or designed to hurt people. Rather, it’s about creating a party atmosphere during dinner, one that makes you feel your favorite uncle is joshing with you.

And I’ve waited five years for that interaction.

In February 2020, just before the pandemic lockdowns, I was in New York for dinner with Brobson Lutz. He’s the former New Orleans health director and 67th stranger featured on the site. Brobson invited me to join his friends for dinner at Sammy’s, which was then at its Chrystie Street location – the spot it held for most of Dani’s performing run. I’d dressed in a suit and tie, knowing that Brobson is a man of impeccable style.

Walking in the front door, my senses overloaded. I saw huge pictures of schmaltz jars (rendered chicken fat), smelled mouthwatering food, and heard raucous singing and laughter. Then from the other end of the packed, single dining room, Dani clocked me.

“Look at this schmuck in a tie,” he said into his mike. “Welcome to the house of cholesterol.”

Normally a room full of people laughing at me would be my worst nightmare, but there was just something about Dani’s delivery and twinkle in his eye that told me I was in on the joke.

The rest of the evening was filled with plenty of laughter at his routine, while being impressed by the quality of his piano playing and singing – even if it included groans at his jokey rework of lyrics. For example, “The Girl from Ipanema” beomes “The Girl with Emphysema” and “As Time Goes By” has the words “A kiss is still a kiss” turning into “A bris is still a bris.”

In awe of Dani’s act, I wanted to interview him after that night, but the pandemic not only temporarily shuttered Sammy’s, but it also led to pausing Dining With Strangers. Then I restarted the site in January, and Dani was high on my list of must-interviews.

“One thing leads to another, it really does, I just love that,” he says present day when I share the story from 2020 and how it got us together. “We are wherever we have to be right now.”

And where we are is the dining room of Sammy’s latest location. The restaurant opened in a large basement in 1975 at the Chrystie Street address, and was there through 2021. Then its owners announced that the financial impact of the pandemic meant the venue was closing for good. The almost countless number of stories by Eater, Business Insider and others lamenting the closing speaks to just how beloved the restaurant had become.

There were even more articles by the likes of the New York Post lauding the return of Sammy’s, which the owners revealed in 2024. It’s now up and running successfully at the Stanton Street venue.

Inside you can see the restaurant’s history – literally, with hundreds of photographs of happy revelers over the years plastered all over the dark walls, with the black paint helping recreate the party basement vibe from Chrystie Street. The roof and other parts of the room are overloaded with noise insulation foam, a necessity given how loud it can get inside between Dani’s singing, joking and the often vodka-fueled conversations among the diners.

Those diners leave full. Sammy’s has a reputation for big portions, and it’s well-earned.

It’s still before opening time but a staff member, Terry, offers some of the menu’s top hits for us to try. It starts with a huge bowl of chopped liver, onions and schmaltz prepared table-side, served with slices of rye bread as a base for smearing the mix on top.

Before my stomach can even consider trying to digest the savory, delicious appetizer, we’re presented with huge meat-stuffed cabbages in a tangy sauce, and garlic-laden sausages.

And then it’s on the to main event – the steak. Served medium-rare, this cut is so long it hangs over the side of the plate. It’s served as is, just the meat. And it doesn’t need any accompaniments because it’s cooked to perfection, succulent, smoky, irresistible.

Sammy’s is also known for bringing bottles of vodka, caked in ice, to the table for its diners of legal age, but we’re skipping that tradition for our late lunch interview. Probably for the best, as I vividly remember the rowdy dinner with Brobson and friends at Sammy’s in 2020, which ended with rather a headache the next morning.

The food might not be fancy, but it’s as much a part of the experience as Dani’s act: big, bold, and enough to keep you coming back to Manhattan for more.

His journey to Sammy’s actually begins far from New York — in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he was born Dani Lubnitzki.

When I ask for the year, he chuckles before responding, “Before I tell you the number, let me say, it’s the year I met the last dinosaur. He died in my fucking hand. It was 1956, and it’s the first time I’m telling the truth about my age. I usually lie. I said, ‘Women lie, why wouldn’t I?’”

From an early age, Dani had a talent for music, learning the piano, clarinet and accordion at school (the latter is handy when playing “Hava Nagila” for the horah dances at Sammy’s).

The stand-out blend of humor and tunes he would eventually develop into a routine comes from his influences growing up. “I was always a split personality. On one hand I’m very into Israeli culture, but there was also a lot of American influence in the house,” he says.

That’s how he first heard the songs of Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, as well as gags from comedians like Dangerfield, Don Rickles and Jackie Mason. “I love the American and New York kind of Jewish-Italian humor. I love the one liners, sometimes they’re two-liners if you have to explain the one line to a schmuck,” he says.

As an adult, he started performing at nightclubs in Tel Aviv to make money – despite being shy, which could be hard to believe if you’ve seen him perform recently. “I am shy, but I had to make a living. And singing is something different, you’re behind the keyboard, it’s a kind of shelter. And slowly, I threw some little jokes in, and I got confident.”

He first came to America in his early 20s with four friends, originally planning Boston but settling in New York. In the U.S., he got married, and then after about a year of living in the States, the couple moved to Israel. They had two children but eventually divorced (Dani speaks proudly of his kids and several grandchildren, and says he remains on good terms with his ex-wife).

By the end of 1998, Dani had experienced some financial difficulties and needed to make money fast. He decided to give America another chance, moving to New York. Within two weeks of arriving, a musician friend who performed at Sammy’s contacted him, asking if he wanted to pick up a shift of two. By then, Dani was going by the last name Lev – the latter meaning “heart” in Hebrew. But the Sammy’s waiters announced him as Dani Luv, and it stuck.

Dani was an instant hit, and when his friend no longer had time on his calendar to be able to come to Sammy’s, Dani was the natural choice to be the permanent replacement. “So that’s it, I became Mr. Saturday night,” he says, then corrects himself, “Really six nights a week, sometimes even seven. One time I did 60, 65 nights in a row, no break.”

Having all that come to a crashing halt with the coronavirus pandemic was tough, and for Dani it’s a vivid memory. “Saturday night, March 14, 2020, we had 300 people on the book at Sammy’s, and we were left with 40 people. My boss said forget about Sunday, Monday, Tuesday – then the rest is history.”

Then came the announcement Sammy’s was closing permanently. Dani stepped up his work doing private parties. It was late 2021 by then and some social gatherings were picking up. As restrictions and fears eased, he then started performing at a couple of venues in the city. “It was less work than at Sammy’s, but somehow thank god I survived.”

Some of the regulars at the steakhouse followed Dani to his new spots. They’d all get happy news in 2024 when the owners of Sammy’s announced the restaurant’s revival.

“Oh my god, happiness is not even starting to describe that,” he says when I ask what it felt like getting the news. “And all the staff is the same staff that we had. The chef, the waiters, the bus boys. Some of them had other jobs and they quit and they came back, that was nice.”

Firmly back as Mr. Saturday Night (and many other nights of the week), Dani has no intention of slowing down. He vows to be at Sammy’s “another 20 years” at least.

“People ask me, my god, six nights a week, so many months, how many years, how do you do this?” he says. “It’s very simple, I’m a fucking lunatic, there’s no other answer.”

He laughs, but then reveals there is another, deeper answer. He speaks fondly of the generations of families that he’s come to know, of the joy as the performer for weddings, bar mitzvahs, birthdays and more, the sheer pleasure of connecting with people.

“I need it, it feeds something. Maybe I don’t want to go to work every time, I just want to stay home. But when I arrive and I see the first people, they’re saying ‘Hey, Dani Luv!’ and they’re singing, people all ages – boom, I’m into it right away. That’s the gift.”

As long as there’s a keyboard, a microphone and a crowd, Dani will be there. Anytime you’re in New York and you want an unforgettable night, see him at Sammy’s.