The Secret to an Excellent Sandwich

Carefully considered and seasoned, each layer of the Surfer, a turkey sandwich Matt Cahn serves at his Middle Child in the heart of Philadelphia, locks into place. The melty Swiss cheese, the spiced blueberry chutney, the vinaigrette-dressed arugula and the housemade deli turkey sit atop a thick smear of Duke’s mayonnaise inside a toasted ciabatta roll. The sandwich has nary a dry bit, and the precision of flavors is illuminating.

Anything that good takes refining. The idea began with a smoked turkey and Brie panini smeared with blueberry jam from a sandwich shop in Maine, where Mr. Cahn spent summers with an old girlfriend. He slowly fine-tuned his own version for surfing trips over the years, even making his own jam from wild blueberries he picked from the backyard.

The relationship didn’t last, but the memories of that time live on as one of the most popular items at Middle Child, the bustling modern sandwich shop he opened in 2017. It’s not always easy to serve something that makes customers return, but dozens of people — old, young and hungry — line up every day to order the blueberry-slicked sandwich.

Well-constructed creations like Mr. Cahn’s embrace an often-overlooked component of sandwich-making: restraint. Put another way, the sought-after sandwiches of today focus any maximalism on finesse and flavor. Of course, thoughtful, well-made sandwiches are nothing new: In New York alone, Court Street Grocers and the shuttered No. 7 Sub and Saltie come to mind. But, now, they’re especially stellar — and easy to come by.

In the roast pork hoagie at Palm City in San Francisco, fried provolone crisps provide crunch among the otherwise soft, meaty textures. A blanket of arugula replaces iceberg lettuce in their take on the Italian hoagie, their most popular sandwich. And for a vegetarian option, a growing genre of sandwiches, a spice blend with tingling Sichuan peppercorns adds intrigue to roasted cauliflower, avocado and pickled vegetables.

In 2020, Dennis Cantwell and Monica Wong did not plan to open Palm City as a hoagie deli. But when the pandemic curbed their initial vision of a mom-and-pop restaurant with “small bites and fun wines,” they had to pivot. With the help of a friend, the chef and Philadelphia native Melissa McGrath, the couple scrapped their plans, partnered with a local bakery and started slinging sandwiches.

What was intended to be a temporary arrangement took off at a time when to-go food was a necessity of quarantine life. “There was something sentimental about a little taste of somewhere else,” said Mr. Cantwell, reflecting on why Philadelphia hoagies were such a success in San Francisco. “They made people happy.”

Sandwiches, they learned, are good business. Mr. Cantwell and Ms. Wong are looking into opening a second location.

At this crop of new sandwich shops, be careful not to mistake curation for limitedness. Precision is often a sign of good eats to come.

At the Bake Shop & Cafe in Cleveland, which opened in 2021, the bread options are as calibrated as the fillings. Care for a curry chicken sandwich, or a turkey club? You can enjoy either on a croissant, baguette or pain de mie. Housemade naan, a customer favorite, can envelop grilled vegetables, if you’d like. But the best option might be the biscuit.

After quitting her job in Tallahassee, Fla., Shawnda Moye moved back home to Ohio and found it difficult to find a good breakfast sandwich, let alone real Southern biscuits. She joked about her “walk of shame” out of a McDonald’s or a Burger King, biscuit sandwich in hand.

To fill the gap, she started the Roaming Biscuit in 2019, a pop-up with a focus on breakfast sandwiches. Her success led her to open the Bake Shop & Cafe in Cleveland’s Tyler Village, where she sells the Roaming Biscuit lineup.

Restraint is especially important in a biscuit sandwich. Too much of anything, and the biscuit disintegrates. The scrambled egg should be light and fluffy, the cheese melted enough to bind, and the bacon sturdy, for structure: thick-cut, and not “the skinny stuff,” Ms. Moye said.

Her most popular biscuit sandwich is a special: smoked brisket, egg and cheese. Customers “get upset when we don’t have it,” she said. A mustard sauce amps up the intrigue. That’s how a guest star becomes a series regular. (Starting Sunday, the sandwich becomes a permanent menu item at the Roaming Biscuit’s new location in the Hingetown neighborhood.)

If there’s one lesson to glean from these sandwich shops, it’s that you should refine your own sandwiches at home, too. That often means pulling back, omitting ingredients to make room for the unexpected.

Take, for example, a tuna salad sandwich. You could load up a can of tuna with the usual cavalcade of ingredients (onion, citrus, herbs), but relying on a smaller set of more potent additions can really make it shimmer.

Acid and crunch can come in the form of delightfully sour, salty pickled pepperoncini and its neon-green brine. Sweet relish can lend balance, and nutty, toasted sesame oil can round things out like the double base in an orchestra.

Served inside a split buttery croissant that’s been just warmed through in a toaster oven, this pared-down tuna salad will taste like a million ingredients — abundance in restraint.