Marmite on Toast
Marmite on toast: a near-black yeast extract scraped thin over hot buttered toast, where the warmth loosens the stiff spread into the melted butter. Britain's most argued-over savoury slice.
Tartines
Welcome to our Tartines category – a tour through the delicious world of these open-faced delights! Though not a sandwich in the traditional sense, tartines are closely sandwich-adjacent, balancing delicate flavors on a single slice of bread. From the classic French breakfast tartine with butter and jam, to the sophisticated combinations of gourmet ingredients, we're serving up a feast for the eyes and palate.
Marmite and Butter
Marmite scraped thin over an ample bed of butter on soft white bread, the fat rounding a near-pure salt-and-savour yeast extract into something deep and moreish. Britain's most argued-over sandwich.
Laverbread on Toast
Laverbread, a Welsh seaweed boiled for hours to a dark purée, spread thick on firm toast and eaten with a knife and fork. A British kitchen rarely lets a seaweed carry the whole plate; here it does.
Laverbread and Bacon
Laverbread fried with bacon; traditional Welsh breakfast component.
Garlic Mushrooms on Toast
Garlic-buttered mushrooms over a single slice of toast, eaten with a fork: an open sandwich where the garlic-butter liquor soaking the bread is the whole point, the pub starter at home.
Bovril Sandwich
A thin dark film of Bovril, the salty Victorian beef extract, dragged across buttered bread. The same flavour Britain cradles in a hot mug on cold football terraces.
Anchovy Toast
Mashed anchovies with butter on thin toast; strong, salty tea sandwich.
Slinger
Hash browns, eggs, hamburger patties, chili, cheese, and onions; sometimes on toast or with bread.
Ponyshoe
The ponyshoe is the Springfield horseshoe at half scale: one slice of toast under meat, fries, and a flood of Welsh-rarebit cheese sauce, eaten flat with a knife and fork.
Hot Open-Face Turkey Sandwich
The diner hot turkey sandwich: roast turkey on a single slice of soft white bread, the whole plate flooded with hot gravy, eaten with a fork. The blue-plate special, built around bread meant to soak.
Hot Open-Face Roast Beef
A single slice of soft white bread under thin roast beef and brown gravy, a scoop of mashed potato beside it under the same gravy, eaten with a fork off a wide oval diner plate.
Hot Brown
The Hot Brown goes under the broiler face-up: turkey on toast, flooded with Mornay, bacon and tomato browned on top. The sauce does two jobs, seasoning the plate and binding it into one.
Horseshoe
Open-faced sandwich with meat on toast, covered with French fries and cheese sauce.
Gerber Sandwich
Open-faced garlic bread topped with ham and Provel cheese, broiled; invented at Ruma's Deli.
Garbage Plate
A Rochester Garbage Plate is a split bed of home fries and macaroni salad under two cheeseburgers or hots, flooded with spiced meat hot sauce, with white bread to mop. Trademarked 1992.
Disco Fries Sandwich
French fries with gravy and melted cheese on bread; diner creation.
Avocado Toast
Not exactly a sandwich, but California's health-food icon; often open-faced.
Welsh Rarebit à la Française
The French reading of British rarebit: melted cheese, beer, and Dijon emulsified into a smooth pourable sauce, poured over toast and blistered under the broiler. Eaten hot, with a knife and fork.
Tartine Parisienne
A half-baguette split open, buttered to the edge, draped with folded jambon de Paris and eaten with a fork: the tartine parisienne is the jambon-beurre with its lid taken off, all of it on show.
Tartine Nutella
One open slice, a brown layer thick enough to hold the knife's drag-marks, no butter under it because the spread carries its own fat. The lazy default of the four o'clock gouter, eaten fast.
Tartine Gratinée
An open slice of country bread heaped with melting cheese and run under a broiler until the top blisters and lacquers. The single slice is a plate for the flame, best in the minute it lands.