You might think Mario Carbone has better things to do than hop on a call from Palermo, Sicily, to talk about club sandwiches, but you’d be wrong. As Carbone declared recently, “I’m a lover of the club.” Turns out he’s not alone. Dine out in New York these days and you’ll notice that the club sandwich—that vestige of hotel room service and diners everywhere—is having a bit of a moment.
I’ll be the first to admit that I tend to notice things I’m on the lookout for. And when I see a club sandwich on a menu, I tend to order it. Carbone features one on the lunch menu at the Grill, in Midtown; Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson offer one at the recently opened Wild Cherry, in the West Village; and, a few blocks east, on Thompson Street, you’ll find one on the bar menu at the chichi Chateau Royale starting in early summer, coinciding with tomato season. What I wanted to know is, How do the most celebrated chefs and restaurateurs in New York approach a sandwich that everyone seems to love—and everyone has plenty of opinions about?
