SANDWICHES

AMERICAN SANDWICHES
Italian beef, Chicago
“The Bear” spiced roast beef sandwich – a hero roll filled with thinly sliced beef and topped with the pickled Italian relish mix called giardiniera. Sweet peppers and melted cheese can be added.
Pimento cheese, Southern states
Always served on white bread. Inside, a mash-up of ingredients turned into a thick spread includes a mix of sharp cheddar, mayonnaise and diced pimento peppers (a derivative of Spanish pimientos). Cream cheese, grated onion and cayenne or hot sauce may also feature in some recipes.
Beef on weck, Buffalo
Roast beef on weck is a specialty at numerous Charlie the Butcher’s locations in the Buffalo area. Served on a kummelweck roll – Weck refers to the salt-crusted kaiser roll topped with caraway seeds. The top bun gets dipped in au jus before capping a pile of thinly sliced roast beef (usually served rare) with a slathering of horseradish.
Grouper sandwich, Florida
The white, flaky fish is served grilled, fried or blackened with tartar sauce and a pickle—best with beer batter-fried fish or a Reuben twist.
Pastrami on rye, New York
American pastrami uses smoked brisket, brined in pickling spices and piled high between two slices of rye bread, with a slathering of spicy brown mustard.
Hot chicken, Nashville
The spicy chicken uses overpoweringly pepper-hot fried chicken served open-faced on bread with a topping of sweet pickles.
French dip, California
Invented in Los Angeles, the Original uses a thinly-sliced roast beef on a French roll dunked into pan juices or broth before eating. It can be served already “wet,” as at Phillipe’s, or au jus as at Cole’s. Purists prefer sans cheese, with spicy mustard as the condiment.
Lobster roll, New England
Chunky lobster meat fresh from its shell — chilled and mixed with lemon juice, mayonnaise and herbs — gets stuffed into a bun split across its top rather than down the side. In Maine, lobster rolls are typically served cold and with mayo, while Connecticut’s classic version is warm and buttered. Best served with a side of potato salad.
Philly cheesesteak, Philadelphia
A hot mess in sandwich form, using a hoagie roll – crusty on the outside and soft and chewy within – is essential. Ribeye steak with melted cheese – provolone or with purists Cooper Sharp cheese. Others prefer American cheese or Cheez Whiz. Peppers and onions are added according to taste.
California veggie sandwich
Sometimes called a “hippie sandwich,” it commonly uses sprouts, avocado and copious crunchy veggies (cucumbers are a favourite) on multigrain bread, or a white cheddar veggie sandwich with Japanese mayo on house sourdough. Add a layer of cheese or hummus.
Po’ boy, Louisiana
Fried seafood – shrimp, oysters, crawfish and catfish served on French bread with shredded lettuce and copious lashings of creamy remoulade sauce.
Hot Brown, Kentucky
A decadent open-face broiled turkey sandwich with bacon and Mornay sauce. Served on Texas toast with trimmed crusts.

WORLD’S BEST SANDWICHES
Bocadillo de jamón Ibérico, Spain
Uses the world’s finest jamón, luxurious Iberian ham from acorn-fed pigs. The thinly sliced meat is piled on crusty bread that’s brushed or drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. Fresh tomatoes and perhaps some cheese can be added, but the ham is the star of this show.
Torta ahogada, Mexico
A “drowned” sandwich uses chopped pork tucked into crusty French bread, drowned in a spicy red sauce.
Tramezzino, Italy
Serves English tea-style triangles of white bread with fillings that include olives and tuna, soft-boiled eggs and vegetables on piles of crispy prosciutto with truffle.
Shawarma, Middle East
Shawarma’s name comes from the Arabic word for “turning” – meat cooked on a vertical spit. Called a gyro in Greece or doner kebab in Germany. Many variations use grilled spiced meat (usually chicken, lamb or beef) shaved from the rotisserie and tucked into a light sleeve of pita bread, topped with tomatoes, onions and parsley and perhaps tahini sauce and hot sauce.
Pambazo, Mexico
One of Mexico’s most famous antojitos (street snacks or appetizers) uses bread tinted red by soaking in slightly spicy guajillo sauce. Open up wide for the potatoes and Mexican chorizo inside, topped with lettuce, cheese and cream.
Bánh mì, Vietnam.
Cool, crunchy and delicious — a baguette sandwich, classically pork-based, starring chả lụa (Vietnamese-style pork roll), shredded pickled carrots, pickled daikon, cilantro leaves, mayonnaise and other ingredients like tofu and thinly sliced lemongrass chicken.
Muffaletta, New Orleans
Uses round, sesame-covered loaves of Sicilian bread with layers of chopped olives, Genoa salami, ham and various cheeses (often with Swiss and provolone).
Chivito, Uruguay
Uses thinly sliced steak (called churrasco), ham, bacon, lettuce, mayonnaise and melted mozzarella piled high into a roll that’s similar to a hamburger bun or ciabatta. It is customarily topped off with a fried egg.
Pan bagnat, France
Like salade Niçoise, crusty pain de campagne, sliced in half (but not entirely through) with layers of raw vegetables, anchovies, olives, sliced hard-boiled eggs, chunks of tuna and liberally applied olive oil, salt and pepper.
Smørrebrød, Denmark
An open-faced sandwich typically uses rye bread with hundreds of combinations of toppings, including curried or pickled herring and tiny pink shrimp, sliced boiled eggs and rare roast beef atop a layer of butter. Smørrebrød goes big.
Spatlo, South Africa
Uses a quarter loaf of bread that’s been hollowed out and stacked to the max with meat and seasoned fries, cheese, bacon, polony (bologna), Russian-style sausage and perhaps a heaping of spicy atchar sauce (made from green mangoes) and a fried egg.
Montreal smoked meat sandwich, Canada.
This sandwich uses smoked beef brisket layered between slices of light rye bread and drizzled with tangy yellow mustard. The best briskets soak for up to two weeks in brine and savoury aromatics such as coriander, peppercorn and garlic before being smoked and hand-sliced.
Po’boy, New Orleans, United States
Mayonnaise-laden French bread stuffed with fried oysters (or perhaps fried shrimp or roast beef) and piled with lettuce, tomato and pickles.
Fricassé, Tunisia
Uses a deep-fried yeast bun with a savoury mashup of tuna, potatoes and boiled egg, often with sliced black olives, preserved lemon and harissa – the ubiquitous spicy condiment made from dried red chilli peppers, garlic and a spice mix that usually includes caraway, cumin and coriander seed.
Cuban sandwich, Cuba/United States
Uses salami (à la Tampa) or not (à la Miami), it is layered with boiled ham, roasted pork, pickles, mustard, Swiss cheese and butter and pressed between pieces of fluffy Cuban bread.
Cucumber sandwich, United Kingdom
A traditional English afternoon tea staple served on platters with scones and mini-pastries. It uses extra soft white bread with the crusts removed, layered with razor-thin English cucumbers (peeled then lightly salted and drained), butter, a light dusting of fine pepper and perhaps a spray of fresh herbs such as dill. Could you cut the sandwich into neat triangles and pair it with a pot of tea?
Chip butty, United Kingdom
Uses buttered white bread stuffed with fries (aka chips in its native Britain) with optional condiments ranging from ketchup and malt vinegar to mayonnaise.
Katsu sando, Japan
A deep-fried pork cutlet – pounded and breaded with panko and tucked into a fluffy Japanese white milk bread called shokupan, usually garnished with ribbons of cabbage or chicken and egg salad (tamago).
Reuben, United States
A sloppily sinful sandwich on rye bread with sliced corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and Russian or Thousand Island-style dressing with lots of napkins.
Croque monsieur/madame, France
A crunchy (croquant) sandwich in female and male incarnations.
The croque monsieur uses slices of white bread stuffed with thinly sliced ham and Emmental or Gruyère, often dipped into egg batter, buttered and pan-fried. For the croque madame, the egg component is served fried atop the sandwich.
Philly cheesesteak, Philadelphia, United States
It’s a hot mess layered with ribeye steak sliced thin, oozing sheets of provolone and sauteed peppers and onions inside a hoagie bun or any thick white bread.
Broodje haring, Netherlands
For serious seafood fans only, it is served cold using crunchy baguette-style bread filled with thin slices of chilled herring that’s been cured in salt and piled with diced onions. Add sliced gherkins.
Falafel pita, Middle East
A vegetarian staple of Middle Eastern cuisine, falafel is made from soaked, ground-up chickpeas mixed with herbs. It is then pushed into a warm and fluffy pita pocket, which is brightened up with lettuce, tomatoes, tangy tahini sauce, and other additions like chilli sauce and hummus.
Choripán, Argentina
Sausages splashed with mustard and chimichurri sauce with a mash-up of chorizo (sausage) and pan (bread).
Lobster roll, New England, United States
It uses chunks of steamed lobster meat, often mixed with lemon juice, mayonnaise, and herbs, and tucked into a roll resembling a hot dog bun.