The Sandwich Savoyard is a Savoie sandwich, and the register of Savoie is mountain dairy: this is built around Alpine cheese first and everything else second. Beaufort, the firm cooked-curd cheese of the high pastures, or Reblochon, the soft washed-rind round, is the defining element, sliced thick onto bread with a thin layer of jambon de pays, sometimes a few cornichons or pickled onions, and not much that distracts from the cheese. The construction is a split crusted loaf, the Savoyard cheese in quantity, and a restrained supporting cast.
The logic follows from what these cheeses are. Beaufort is dense and savory with a long fruity finish; Reblochon is creamy, supple, and faintly nutty under its rind. Either one is rich enough to carry the sandwich, which sets the discipline: pile on a strong condiment or a second loud ingredient and you are competing with the cheese instead of presenting it. The thin slice of cured mountain ham is there to add salt and a savory backbone the cheese does not have on its own, not to take the lead. The bread needs a real crust and a crumb with structure, because Reblochon especially is soft enough to smear and a flimsy loaf gives the sandwich nothing to stand on. A cornichon or a little pickled onion adds the single acidic note that keeps the dairy from going heavy across a whole sandwich. Beaufort, sliced thin, drapes and folds; Reblochon, brought to room temperature, spreads almost like a soft paste against the crust.
Eaten plainly, this is the sandwich form of Savoie's cheese counter, best while the Reblochon is supple and the bread still has bite.
Variations stay inside the Alpine larder rather than wandering off it. Tomme de Savoie reads milder and more rustic; a grilled, melted treatment turns it toward the hot Savoyard table; a few Savoie diots alongside push it toward the sausage shelf. The toasted, béchamel-bound hot version is the Croque-Savoyard, a different sandwich. It belongs with the place-named builds the catalog groups under Regional Specialty Sandwiches, and its specific contribution is the mountain cheese as the whole point: a sandwich whose job is to get out of Beaufort or Reblochon's way.