Sure, you’re probably already eating your desk-side lunches on a bun three times a week. But instead of brown-bagging it, roll on over to these newly opened sandwich shops for a lighter twist on Italian Sunday roasts, a crash course in the finer points of the Mexican torta or a gut-busting serving of homemade, slow-cooked goodness. Here’s the most fun you can have on two pieces of bread.
CARVER 101 Peter, at Adelaide, 647-748-1924, facebook.com/eatcarver
Around the corner from Carver, Flock gets lines out the door for Cory Vitiello’s roast chicken. And after getting the whole city hooked on its sandwiches, Porchetta & Co. just opened its much-anticipated second spot on King West. So why open a spot that essentially only serves roasted chicken and porchetta sammies, and park it spitting distance from both?
It seems like a reasonable thing to ask – until you try the food at ex-Marben chef Rob Bragagnolo‘s new spot.
His porchetta, sourced from Mennonite farmers, is ultra-lean, with liberal doses of spicy, slow-burning apricot mostarda (a traditional northern Italian condiment) and plenty of rosemary obliterating any lingering lardiness. And the roasted chicken option, featuring free-range meat, is like the lighter cousin of the Italian veal sandwich: the bright, acidic tomato tapenade hits you first, followed by a wallop of citrus from the aioli Bragagnolo makes from whole roasted lemons.
Both sandwiches are pressed up fresh on airy focaccia baked daily at the Drake, and available with fluffy smashed potatoes as a side option. They’re totally different animals from the local competition – but nothing that will leave diners in a food coma.
“Rich, overly fatty kind of cuts – they just get boring after a while,” Bragagnolo says. “After you finish half a sandwich you feel kind of sick, because it’s too heavy.”
After piloting his sandwich concept at last year’s Taste Of Toronto festival (where they sold 1,000 sandwiches in a single day), he – literally – road-tested it with UberEATS, making his sandwiches available exclusively through the app.
Brick-and-mortar was the next necessary step. Carver opened last month in a cubby-like space that has just enough room for a tiny kitchen, a pickup counter and a mini-mural of a Tribe Called Quest quote (not in tribute to recently deceased member Phife Dawg pure coincidence, Bragagnolo says.)
“We wanted to keep it tight regardless of the space – but the space really dictates our options. We can only do a couple of things, and that’s it.”
TORTERÍA SAN COSME 181 Baldwin, at Kensington, 416-599-2855, sancosme.ca
The first rule of Tortería San Cosme, a Mexican eatery devoted entirely to sandwiches, is that there’s no such thing as a Mexican sandwich.
“It’s an oxymoron,” says owner/chef Arturo Anhalt. “In Mexico, you’d ask, ‘What is this – a sandwich?’ They’d say ‘No. It’s a torta.'”
Another key rule? “From the start, we said no tortillas, no tacos, nothing to do with what people are used to.”
Though tortas were always on the menu at Milagro, where Anhalt is head chef, they were constantly overshadowed in taco-mad Toronto. But if the steady crowds cycling in and out of what used to be Kensingtons café are any indication, this city is more than ready for the advent of the torta.
The corner space has been transformed into a slice of Mexico, complete with hand-lettered signs, tin siding, a punchy mural and a bold woven awning hanging over the counter. The 10-strong sandwich menu, too, recreates staple torta-stand fare.
The bedrock of each sandwich is a flat, crusty telera roll developed specially for them by neighbouring Blackbird Baking Co., which gave the traditional loaf a slight sourdough flavour. “[Blackbird’s Simon Blackwell] is breaking his whole supply process to make teleras,” Anhalt admits a little sheepishly.
The stellar, smoky Cubana, the crowd favourite, stacks ham, slow-roasted adobo pork and Sanagan’s bacon, plus Caplansky’s hot mustard. Anhalt’s fave, the Milanese, gets extra beefiness from a layer of slow-cooked beans, along with breaded chicken breast and a slice of Chihuahua cheese. These are hearty sandwiches, but big slices of tomato and avocado from the nearby grocers, plus pickled veggies made with a recipe handed down from Anhalt’s mom, keep things light.
In addition, Anhalt and Co. borrowed some of Mexico’s favourite street snacks for an antojitos menu: esquites, corn niblets awash in crema, lime juice and cotija cheese crumbles thick house-cut chips doused in lime, chili and their own branded hot sauce fresh house-made churros ready to dunk in goat’s milk caramel or spicy Mexican hot chocolate. He tells me torterías generally wouldn’t sell this stuff, but I’m not complaining.
KNUCKLE SANDWICH 969 Coxwell, at Plains, 647-748-7999, knucklesandwich.ca
There’s plenty of great mom-and-pop eating to be done in East York, but local boys and childhood friends George Talidis and Ran Han thought their neighbourhood’s dining options could use a little more – wait for it – punch.
The result is Knuckle Sandwich, which brings a very downtown assortment of hefty sammies and craft beer to Coxwell and O’Connor.
It’s a straight-up place with a straight-up approach: “The menu was pretty much ‘What do we like to eat? What do we want to see between two slices of bread?'” says Talidis, who previously managed the King West location of Bier Markt.
The duo knew they wanted to make everything in-house (except the bread, which comes from an undisclosed source in the west end). Their beef brisket packs a wallop of dark, autumnal flavours. Some prodding from Talidis reveals the secret: the brisket, sourced from Fresh from the Farm, gets a 12-hour braise in whatever dark beer the kitchen has handy, plus a little cocoa, cinnamon and star anise. You can get those tender shreds of beef on a crusty bun with arugula and pickled onion, or atop a quite good nacho poutine.
But the fan favourite in the neighbourhood so far is their buttermilk chicken, which boasts a heavyweight portion of brined, deep-fried bird, plus an unusual but weirdly addicting chipotle honey and garlic aioli combo.
Hungry herbivores shouldn’t shy away, either. There’s a respectably beefy portobello mushroom sub topped with feta, eggplant, house-made olive tapenade, arugula and herb oil, and a tasty kale salad topped with prosciutto crisps, parm and cranberries that would send even a sumo wrestler home happy.
Looking for more places to eat? Search for restaurants in your neighbourhood here.
