It’s a weekday lunchtime and about 30 people, mostly millennials in fashionable hiking trainers, are milling around in an alleyway off London’s Hackney Road. The scent of a wood-fired oven wafts in as everyone waits for the sandwich they preordered the night before; a maximum of 200 will be sold. Rogue Sarnies isn’t the only sandwich place taking preorders these days. Eric’s and Chatsworth Bakehouse, both in London, and Fat Pat’s in Manchester do it too. It speaks to the prudence of the operators – wasting as little as possible – and confirms the sandwich as a status symbol, something to post about for clout, replacing burgers and joining baked goods as items to display in foodies’ social media feeds.

Sahil Patel and two friends, who live nearby, have been to Rogue Sarnies every Thursday for a month, working their way through the menu. “We normally get four sandwiches and share,” Patel says. “There’s a new one today, the bolognese.” All agree that their favourite so far is a stir-fry pork number. The sandwiches are stacked and made with wood-fired bread similar to a crisp pizza base. They also cost north of £10, but “it’s like a three-course meal in one bite”, Patel says.

View image in fullscreen

Sandwiches have changed a great deal since the days of being either a way to use up leftovers, served at afternoon teas or made to order as a basic, affordable lunch staple. A photograph from 1972 regularly does the rounds on social media, showing piles of them in a London shop, with fillings on offer between sliced white bread including ham (13p) and liver sausage (10p).

The era of the packaged sandwich began in 1980, thanks to Marks & Spencer. By 2017, Britain’s sandwich industry, led by the ubiquitous meal deal, was worth £8bn. Covid slowed its growth, but in 2021 Bloomberg introduced a “Pret Index” to track workers returning to the office – a sure sign of recovery. Sales in 2022 were up £66m on the year before, creeping back to 2019’s all-time high.

Now, we are in the middle of a new, more radical period of change driven by independent operators around the country. The result is that some of Britain’s most delicious food is now served between slices of bread.

It is common to see queues and cult outlets in major cities and beyond. Manchester has Rack and Bada Bing as well as Fat Pat’s, and in 2022 local website Eat MCR declared “Manchester’s golden age of sandwiches is upon us”. Alby’s is making waves in Edinburgh, and Cabin sells its chicken shawarma sandwiches from a business park in Buckinghamshire. In London, Dom’s Subs, down the road from Rogue Sarnies, opened in 2020 and quickly gained a following. Cured in Crouch End (Italian deli meats in thick focaccia wedges), Chatsworth Bakehouse in Crystal Palace (doorstops with creative fillings such as patatas bravas with romesco sauce, roasted peppers and crunchy fried almonds) and pop-up Wilde’s Deli (modern takes on Jewish classics), currently in Nunhead, all opened after the pandemic. Even restaurants are getting in on the act. A star dish at José Pizarro’s Lolo, which recently opened in Bermondsey in south-east London, is a steak sandwich with cheese and peppers.

Basically, it’s a little restaurant, but instead of using plates, we’re putting things in bread

This upstart generation has aspirations. Sandwich Sandwich, a small Bristol chain, launched a branch near St Paul’s in London earlier this year to considerable fanfare, announcing its desire to take on Pret. This month, it announced a second site in the capital as “3,500 sq ft of sandwich heaven”, saying “we weren’t joking” about “coming for some of the biggest players in the industry”.

Gourmet sandwiches, like many food trends, are at least in part inspired by the US, where huge, filled sandwiches have always been popular. But here in the UK, prices have prompted scorn from elements of the press, who have dubbed it a social-media fad – and there’s no doubt sandwiches do well on TikTok: they are brightly coloured and abundantly stuffed.

Fraser Searle started the Sensational Sandwiches account in 2022 and now has more than 1.5 million followers. He believes there’s a “sandwich renaissance. They’re a great platform for trying new combinations and pushing the boat out to make something familiar seem brand new.”

That’s exactly how the current wave began. In November 2014, Max Halley found a site in a quiet north London neighbourhood. Having worked in top restaurants, his logical next step may have been a “small plates, modern European restaurant looking for a Michelin star. I didn’t want to do that. I thought: what was a thing that had mass appeal but had been largely neglected?”

View image in fullscreen

Burgers were already all the rage, so Halley launched Max’s Sandwich Shop. At first it opened only in the evenings, like a restaurant, and riffed on classic meals: fillings included “ham, egg and chips” made with braised ham hock, homemade piccalilli, fried eggs and shoestring fries. Homemade focaccia was favoured over sourdough (“too chewy”). They immediately made an impact. “Largely, sandwiches were rubbish for a long time,” says Halley. “Most were from a supermarket and needed to come with a bottle of Coke and crisps to be considered a meal.”

The pandemic spurred another wave. Chefs pivoted to takeaways, putting skill and creativity into a more portable format. “You don’t need any specialist equipment and you can make them in a small space,” says Josh Jones, editor of Sandwich magazine. Customers were enticed by the familiarity, quality and ultimately the price, despite the criticisms – a filling meal for £10 is hard to find these days.

In Manchester, I find myself in a slightly seedy backstreet, dodging wheelie bins. At a hole in the wall I find Fat Pat’s; I ring the bell and a server opens the hatch. Fat Pat’s offers huge, American-inspired subs with fillings including Nashville spicy fried chicken and Philly cheesesteak with crispy onions and a gooey five-cheese mix. They aren’t cheap, ranging from £13-17 with a drink, but they are delicious: well balanced with soft bread, crunchy fillings and plenty of sauce.

Previously a restaurant chef, Aanish Chauhan opened Fat Pat’s in 2022. “My brother said, ‘You can’t do anything here; it’s hidden, you’re in an alleyway.’” Unperturbed, Chauhan spent 10 months developing the perfect sub roll – soft, yielding to the fillings, but never disintegrating. The “junk food gourmet sandwiches”, as Chauhan describes them, are all halal, which he says makes them more accessible. A limited menu (just four options) allows him to focus on each option. “I’ve worked in fine dining restaurants and there’s an obsession with making each component as good as it can be. I’ve done that with a sandwich,” he says.

View image in fullscreen

Manchester isn’t the only city outside London where sandwiches are firmly in vogue. Things in Bread, in Leeds – a diminutive shop a few doors down from a branch of Greggs – sells up to 300 sandwiches a day. They are British classics – BLT, tuna mayo, chicken salad – but made with shokupan, incredibly soft Japanese milk bread, from a local bakery.

Tom Stafford opened Things in Bread in 2022. “I hate being compared to meal deals, but that’s kind of what we do. Classic, nostalgic sandwiches, but elevated a bit.” He recommends a humble egg mayo (top tip: always ask the proprietor what their favourite sandwich is). It’s fantastic: huge chunks of egg, lots of cress and plenty of flavour. The secret? A touch of salad cream and pickle juice.

Another of Leeds’s most hyped spots is five miles west in the suburb of Bramley, on a quiet high street boasting a Chinese takeaway and kebab shop. The sandwiches at Silver’s Deli are completely different to those at Things in Bread, but equally popular. “It’s been pretty mad since day one,” founder Chris Riley-Smith says. “I love food trends, and I knew sandwiches were going to be massive.” During a cost of living crisis, “people still want that luxury of eating out, but they’re not going to spend £25-30 a head every week”.

View image in fullscreen

Like Fat Pat’s, Silver’s looks primarily to the US. The bread is inspired by the hoagie roll and made by a local bakery. Fillings are partly inspired by New York: salt beef with pickles; Swiss cheese and mustard; a meatball sub. Tuna mayo comes with dill, capers, olives, pickled onion and cucumber, and is superb. Chicken and bacon might sound like a supermarket favourite but here the chicken is roasted every morning with thyme, garlic and olive oil, and the aioli is homemade.

Back at Rogue Sarnies, I’m in the kitchen on a Wednesday morning, a day before the shop opens. It’s in an annexe of a restaurant run by the same team, and several boxes of produce, from red onions to runner beans, which co-founder Zac Whittle picked up overnight at New Covent Garden market, are being prepped. One kitchen is dedicated to sandwiches and it’s clear they benefit from the same amount of painstaking work as the restaurant’s tasting menu. Chefs roast kilos of chicken bones for a jus, there’s a wagyu topside on the counter, and a huge porchetta is resting. Almost everything in the sandwiches, from grilled vegetables to the bread itself, is cooked in a small wood-fired oven. Tomorrow, the sandwiches will be assembled, heated and served.

View image in fullscreen

“We adopt the same approach as in the restaurant,” Whittle says. “We don’t dumb it down. Basically, it’s a little restaurant but instead of using plates, we’re putting things in bread.” What does he make of criticisms about the price? “Sandwiches for a tenner? Yeah, it’s a lot of money, but I sleep well at night knowing the work that goes into them.”

Halley’s mantra is “hot-cold, sweet-sour, crunchy-soft. In those three core contrasts, deliciousness lies.” For Stafford, the perfect sandwich should provide “every ingredient with every bite”. Riley-Smith adds that something as simple as dressing the salad can elevate a sandwich.

Is it a fad? “It does seem to be the in-thing,” Whittle says, “but we have people who come back every week. If there wasn’t a foundation to it, it would eventually peter out.”

At 6pm on a Wednesday I scroll through Rogue Sarnies’ website and order a zucchini zest. It’s stuffed with wood-fired courgettes, borlotti beans and chervil, with sweet tomatoes, cooling burrata and lemony dressing. The bread is crispy, with a pleasing chew, and the fillings are perfectly balanced. It may have cost £10.50, which sounds punchy for a vegetarian sandwich, but I’m certain to buy again.

The sandwich gurus’ guide to a superior cheese sarnie

Tips to elevate the humble toastie, and a new take on tuna melt

Keep it simple but high quality
Tom Stafford of Things in Bread in Leeds favours a freshly made French baguette, one that’s “a little burnt”. Use thickly spread, proper salted butter: “I’m talking almost enough that you can’t see the bread,” he says. Add generous slices of Pitchfork cheddar, a crack of black pepper, and “nothing else”.

The right foundations
Max Halley says, “A toasted sandwich is the only time sourdough is acceptable, because it holds together well and gets super crunchy.” Fraser Searle of Sensational Sandwiches agrees: “My go-to for a grilled cheese sandwich would be grilling sourdough stuffed with sharp cheddar and mozzarella first, then adding handfuls of caramelised onion with thick-cut ham or back bacon.”

Mix the soft with the crunchy
“Cow’s milk cheeses melt well. Taleggio is good,” says Halley, who recommends contrasting rich, fatty, soft things with acidic and crunchy ingredients such as pickles, chutneys, piccalilli or kimchi. “Always put mayo on the outside of your bread, not butter. Mayo’s made of oil and egg, and browns beautifully, helping the toast get really crunchy.”

Or pile it on …
Natasha Ferguson, co-owner of Alby’s in Edinburgh, suggests a new take on tuna melt using top-quality tinned sardines. Add aioli, chopped white onions, capers, parsley, jalapeños, a little paprika and Worcestershire sauce. Top with punchy Scottish cheddar and a little mozzarella, “for meltiness, and fire it into the toaster. Delish.” Her top tip? Use day-old focaccia. “The oil helps it get a good crust while the middle stays nice and soft.”