At its most elemental, the sandwich is an efficient delivery system for protein, carbs, and maybe a few vegetables, requiring just two pieces of bread and a pair of hands to consume. But in modern New York, the sandwich has evolved into something else entirely. It’s not just sustenance — it’s baguettes blobbed with sea-urchin roe and smeared with Korean-mustard-oil butter, milk-braised turkey leg on Pullman, oak-smoked salami squished into an onion roll. Joining the city’s classics — the hillock of carved pastrami piled onto twin slices of rye at Katz’s, say, or El Sitio’s venerable Cubano — they make for a particularly rich moment in the city for stuff between two slices of bread.

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