https://youtu.be/c-CgvJSL7Q0
We've scoured the city to find out the best places to go next time you're feeling a bit flush and you're looking for something that's as far-removed from the standard pre-pack as possible.
These are some serious sandwiches and are packed with the most luxurious ingredients imaginable - but they've got a hefty price tag to match...
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Wagyu Katsu Sando at Cottonopolis: £25
Made using the most premium cut of beef you can get, from the most sought-after breed of cow in the world, this whole
5oz wagyu fillet steak sandwich suddenly doesn't sound too steep when you compare it to Cottonopolis' regular fillet on the menu, which costs £5 more for the same amount of beef!
The sandwich comes served with an absolutely outrageous burger sauce which is familiar enough but with that typical
Japanese twist which fits Cottonopolis down to a tee. To be completely honest, I'd pay close to £25 for a bowl of that burger sauce itself!
Book now
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Pulguitas de Langosta at La Bandera: £25
These lobster sliders from La Bandera have a hefty price tag because second only to perhaps steak or solid gold, lobsters are one of the most expensive ingredients a chef can work with. La Bandera uses
lobsters from Galicia which some say is the shellfish capital of the world.
The lobster tails are cooked with
garlic, parsley, chilli and caramelised onions which add a certain boldness to the typically mild and delicate flavour of lobster.
This is then piled onto four
jet-black squid ink brioche buns and served with
Padron peppers, horseradish aioli and some delicious sweet potato chips on the side. It really is a fun, sophisticated Spanish spin on burger and chips – a comforting (expensive) classic for all of us, I’m sure.
The thing about the Pulguitas de Langosta is that it is more than just the ingredients too.
Everything on the board is made in-house which means everything that goes into this sandwich is a real labour of love from the dedicated family-run restaurant.
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1lb Reuben Sandwich at Eat New York: £25
This monster matches the butties with its £25 price tag, but this is a completely different animal altogether.
This
house-cured pastrami is piled higher than the Empire State in between two slices of toasted rye bread. There's 10-14 days' work put into this sandwich where the pastrami is
brined, rubbed, cured, smoked and steamed on site.
The guys at Eat New York spare no expense when it comes to the meat itself. They fly over
USDA grain fed beef brisket for their pastrami from the states, which may seem like an unnecessary expense, but let me tell you, if they didn't it wouldn’t have that amazing
buttery succulent texture to the meat. It's worth every penny.
So the meat is the best quality, the process is painstakingly time-consuming, but one of the most obvious things about this sandwich is
the sheer size of the thing. You get
A WHOLE POUND OF MEAT in this bad boy which means it could feed two or three people quite easily, or someone with a black hole for a stomach.
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If you asked me two weeks ago if £25 was too much to pay for a sandwich I would have thought you were mental for even asking. But
after eating £75 of stuff-between-bread I’ve got to say I can now fully appreciate the effort and ingredients that go into such sandwiches.
Cottonopolis and La Bandera both
turn the sandwich on its head and make it something luxurious but at the same time shareable so the price tag seems much more reasonable when split between three or four people.
Gram for gram, however, you certainly get your money’s worth of meat with the Eat New York Reuben, although I can’t think of a single human who could manage that beast of a butty on their own.
The point is, just because it comes under the category of a 'lowly' sandwich doesn’t mean that it has to be cheap and cheerful.
Sandwiches are a blank canvas that everyone loves, and so chefs have free reign to play and create amazing things, although, at £25, these ones might just be a once a month treat for me!
