Perth’s infatuation with sandwiches shows little sign of letting up.
Specialised shops such as Le Vietnam (banh mi), Deli’s Continental (continental rolls) and Jean-Claude Patisserie (dainty ficelles cradling a sensible quantity of French-inspired fillings) continue to sate even the most specific of lunchtime sandwich cravings.
There are social media accounts dedicated to tracking the city’s finest expressions of particular sandwiches. Last year, Perth hosted its first banh mi festival.
While one doesn’t have to go far for a hit of deliciousness-betwixt-bread, my most memorable sandwich encounters over the past two years have almost always been the ones I didn’t see coming.
Encounters such as bumping into an unknown Pakistani sandwich at a kebab shop that needed Googling. Or spying a random A-frame sign deep in suburban Belmont that was adorned with two of the most heart-warming words in the Italian language: “porchetta panini.”
Welcome, friends, to Perth’s secret sandwich dark web.
Admittedly, “secret” is tricky to define and the suggestion of something being “hidden away” comes with certain caveats. Secret, to who exactly? And does little-known necessarily mean delicious? One food writer’s discovery might well be a local’s post-gym, Saturday brunch go-to.
In the interests of transparency, I share the self-imposed guidelines I followed while compiling this wrap. I haven’t included bakeries, lunch bars, cafes or any other place one could reasonably expect to find sandwiches, so that ruled out the brilliant curry bratwurst rolls at Bayswater’s charming Wunderbar lunch bar. (A round-up of Perth’s great lunch bar sandwiches, I feel, is its own article.)
One-off sandwich creations eaten at pop-ups and takeovers were also off the table – I want readers to be able to order everything here. I also resisted the urge to feature DIY hack-it-yourself sangers, even though chats with members from Perth’s key conti roll families have all suggested that the origin of Perth’s legendary Australian-Italian sandwich includes customers building their own rolls in-store using the smallgoods, cheese and chewy Italian-style bread that they just purchased.
(Quietly: I reckon a sandwich made with the sourdough at Wines and While, a brickie’s trowel’s worth of the house-cultured butter, plus chef Jack Short’s extraordinary panisse would be a two-hander of real beauty, but I fear that if I made one in front of owner Tom Van Beem, I’d cop a temporary ban from the William Street natural wine bar.)
So with all that said, here are some of the hidden sandwiches I’ve unearthed in the line of duty.
Fair warning, this is far from an exhaustive list, but I hope these finds encourage you to look closer at the menus and venues around you when you’re next out and about (and maybe even send some of your finds my way). Secret sandwiches are anywhere and everywhere.
The prosaic name and façade of this neighbourhood eatery – it’s next to Bhutanese and Nepalese food stronghold, Mountain Mantras – hints little at the menu’s strong Pakistani accent. Although the menu offers shawarmas, desi meat boxes (aka halal snack packs), chips and other kebab shop classics, it’s the first place in Perth where I’ve sighted this Karachi street food classic starring a squishy lentil patty, fried egg, salad and a piquant chutney – tamarind? Tomato? – sandwiched between a soft, hot dog-style white roll.
Only available during the day, this lunchtime-friendly sandwich takes Canteen’s elegant, long-fermented dough in a different direction. It starts with a puffy, lightly pockmarked quarter of dough – your panini – that gets slit before being stuffed with shaved radish, horseradish cream and juicy roast pork. Consume, perhaps with an accompanying beverage from the drinks list, and watch the forecast for your afternoon skyrocket.
Also from the department of pizza shops serving great roast pork sandwiches. See that picture of a barbecue tray filled with luscious shaved porchetta in this suburban takeaway’s Google listing? All that could be yours. Available in the whole or half portion, Al Trancio’s panino – sliced lengthways and built like a traditional sandwich rather than filled, pizza pocket-style a la Canteen Pizza – uses a bubbly, focaccia-like bread similar to the plank-like Roman-style pizza bases baked by owner Marco di Ciano.
Granted, the ordering system for the cafe spin-off inside this perhaps unexpectedly sleek, suburban Asian grocer can be tricky for first-timers – you order and pay at the cash register across from the cafe and staff will give you a ticket that you then take to the cafe – but it’s worth persisting with. While the price of the roast pork belly banh mi has grown a buck and is now an even $10, the pork is still juicy and crunchy in all the appropriate places and the filled sandwich still groans with serious heft.
On Saturdays and Sundays, this specialist South American butcher on Brisbane Street brings its meat party to the street and grills skewers of picanha (rump cap), entranha (skirt steak) and sausages over charcoal till charry and smoky. Choose your meat, watch it get piled into a crusty white bun along with the zippy Brazilian salsa known as vinaigrette plus some fine squiggles of mayonnaise, and start your weekend right.
I have a confession to make: because of where I usually park and the entrance I usually take when shopping at The Park Centre, it was only recently that I realised there was a cafe window at cheese shop La Delizia Latticini where one can score excellent filled panini: this glorious sandwich starring a thin, breaded cutlet, salad and a luscious plank of Latticini’s outstanding mozzarella. Why didn’t anyone tell me about this? I thought we were friends.
Among the jalebi, jamun, barfi and other Indian confectionaries sold at this spin-off of Indian grocery Bentley Spices, one will find a deep menu of calorific, big-hitting street food favourites. Among the paralysing number of options is the vada pav: a classic Mumbai street food starring a fried, highly spiced, pool-ball-sized fritter of potato and pea cradled in a soft white bun that’s been lightly toasted and anointed with mint and tamarind chutneys. Is the light drizzle of grated cheese on the buns strictly necessary?
I’m not sure, but it feels like a flourish that’s in sync with the more-is-more spirit of this beloved Indian and the shop’s menu, generally. (See also, toasted sandwiches freighting butter chicken and cheese, and masala egg and cheese.)
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Max Veenhuyzen is a journalist and photographer who has been writing about food, drink and travel for national and international publications for more than 20 years. He reviews restaurants for the Good Food Guide.
