Let me start by saying that, without any doubt at all, the reuben is one of the world’s ten best sandwiches. And, despite the fact that it contains Swiss cheese and German sauerkraut, a sandwich doesn’t get much more American than a reuben.

In San Miguel de Allende, a restaurant doesn’t get much more American than Silveyra’s but, until today, I had never seen a reuben on their menu. 

“Hey” (people from Kansas City start a lot of sentences with hey), said Keli Silveyras, “have you tried our Reuben.”

“I’ve got a feeling that I’m going to in about ten minutes”, I replied.

I thought of ordering a cola (the most American of soft drinks) to keep the very American sandwich company but then saw the little blackboard with the aguas frescas. 

“The strawberry lemonade is my favorite”, said Keli.

“Let’s do it”, I replied and it took just one sip to get why Keli liked it.

A reuben is a complicated work of art and I can’t imagine it was an easy sell when, back in the twenties, Charles Schimmel first put it on the menu at the Blackstone Hotel in Omaha.

“But Charlie, I can’t even spell sauerkraut, never mind stomach it”, could have been a comment from Schimmel’s poker-playing buddies.

“It took a while to get it on the menu here”, said Keli’s husband and Silveyra’s chef Ruben. “We couldn’t find any sauerkraut that would work. There was only one thing to do, make it ourselves.”

My usual complaint about sauerkraut is too much vinegar. No complaint with Silveyra’s.

“We had a problem with the pastrami as well. We tried other peoples’ but, finally, just had to go with the homemade”, continued Ruben. “The corned beef is specially ordered from our butcher. After cleaning, we submerge it in a curing salt bath with lots of spices…cloves, cilantro seeds, pepper, paprika…and leave it to soak, changing the water frequently. Afterwards, it is slow-cooked until juicy, generally about nine to ten hours.

I liked that Ruben keeps the strip of fat on his brisket. I liked that there were some well-done bits on the outside. It could have been sliced a little thinner, it could have been a little more moist, but it was very, very tasty.

There is only one bread for a reuben and that is dark (but not too dark) rye. Dark (but not too dark) rye is not easy to find in San Miguel de Allende.

“Pablo makes our rye bread several times weekly,” Keli Silveyras told me. “He is well known for his baked goods, including bagels, at the Los Frailes Saturday Market.”

Ruben Silveyras knows that there’s another essential step with the bread in the creation of a reuben. The bread should be buttered on one side then placed on the grill for seconds to add a little bit of grease and little bit of toast to the texture.

There was one more question I had about the ingredients in Silveyra’s reuben. Because it’s the most controversial ingredient. And I had to ask because, I must admit, I have problems telling the difference.

“Russian or thousand island?”, I asked Keli. 

“We prefer the thousand island as it has chives and pickles, which gives it more flavor”, Keli replied. “We make it fresh, in-house daily.”

The rather ridiculously low price of Silveyra’s reuben ($120) also includes a side. Keli recited a long list of choices. I chose the obvious.

Now some people may frown at a restaurant that buys and serves frozen french fries. I congratulate them. I think that, sooner or later, almost every San Miguel restaurant gets frustrated with the failure of Mexican whites or the hassle of importing russets on the black market.

Silveyra’s uses frozen 6.3 mm thin cuts from LambWeston in Washington State. I don’t think you can get much better potatoes than that in the middle of Mexico.

First it was the pork milanesa that captured my heart at Silveyra’s. Then the pulled pork. Now the reuben. I was wondering what was next.

“Stay tuned”, said Keli. “Coming soon, the hero.”

Silveyra’s is located at Privada de Prolongacion de Aldama #8 in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The restaurant is open from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, every day except Tuesday.