While shooting last week’s newsletter, I sneaked off with our photographer, Heather Willensky, for a bite of Texas barbecue. We ordered brisket, mac and cheese and pig tails glazed in passion-fruit barbecue sauce that gleamed like tanghulu. Looking it over, Heather said it best: “I can’t wait to make a brisket sandwich in the morning.”
A great sandwich takes something, like barbecue, and makes it feel brand-new. That’s the idea behind the three spots I’m highlighting this week: Báhn Ahn Em in the East Village; Macario in Park Slope and Luther’s, based out of a punk rock venue in Ridgewood. Using cold cuts and chicken thighs, they raise the bar for the sandwiches I thought I knew, and introduced me to new ones I hadn’t seen before.
The dream of Prince’s Hot Chicken is alive in Queens
I first heard about Jesse Lipper and Jolene Mattison last year, when a friend texted me that two punks were cooking out of a dive bar kitchen under the B.Q.E. That wasn’t the craziest part, though. The craziest part was that their menu was all vegan, and carnivores were schlepping from across the city for their fried mushroom sandwiches.
I missed them at their pop-up, but I found them earlier this month cooking in the backyard of the punk rock venue TV Eye in Ridgewood, where the couple was married. At Luther’s, named after Mr. Lipper’s grandfather, they’re now making some of my favorite Nashville hot chicken, here or in the South. (Don’t worry, the mushroom sandwiches are still on the menu.) You can order a quarter leg with rémoulade, but I love it smashed between sesame buns, the thick, battered chicken thigh spilling out from both ends, separating it from the many, many hot chicken sandwiches around town. (And the cayenne-based dry rub is top notch, too.) The owners say it’s based on the famous recipe at Prince’s Hot Chicken in Nashville.
16-47 Weirfield Street (Wyckoff Avenue), Ridgewood
A new kind of bánh mì
The chef Nhu Ton, an owner of Bánh on the Upper West Side, visited Vietnam five times while perfecting the bánh mì at Bánh Ahn Em in the East Village. Only then did she settle on her recipe for crisp-crusted bread, tender in the middle and still warm because the loaves are baked in batches throughout the day.
Her bánh mì are unlike anything I’ve tasted: split open and crammed full of barbecued pork, sliced head cheese and golden florets of fried chicken. (After I enjoyed the one with battered tofu and pesto, I was convinced: On bread this good, anything goes.) Using the same recipe, she makes bánh mì that are similar to slender breadsticks, sliced lengthwise and swiped with pork liver pâté and garlicky hot sauce. Over time, I’ve started to develop a theory that Ton isn’t just one of the city’s finest Vietnamese chefs, but also one of its most versatile bakers. She recently added a doughnut to the menu, treating it like a sandwich for sticky rice and sliced sausage, and there’s no shame in ordering one as a warm-up for a bánh mì.
99 Third Avenue (East 13th Street), East Village
Practice makes pierna
I hadn’t heard of the lonche bañado, a sopping wet street sandwich from the Mexican city of Guadalajara, until I was face first in one at Macario in Park Slope. My lips and fingers were stained orange from the salsa and a small mountain of napkins had accumulated at one end of the table, exactly what the chef, Marshall Dean, had in mind.
In Mexico, Mr. Dean used to franchise Subway sandwich shops. He transferred those skills here and started making lonche bañados in 2023 after struggling to find them in New York City. Like in Guadalajara, his sandwiches are heaped with marinated pork leg, or pierna, and properly soaked with several ladlefuls of creamy tomato salsa. (The recipe for the sauce comes from Mr. Dean’s wife, Vanessa Martin, whose family has lived in Guadalajara for generations.) There is a correct way to eat them, as I learned last month, when Mr. Dean watched me struggle with my lonche bañado until he had seen enough. From him: You clutch the sandwich with three fingers of one hand and spoon on salsa with the other. It might take more than one sandwich to master, but I promise it’s worth the practice.
463 Fourth Avenue (11th Street), Park Slope
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