A Club Sandwich Survey

Manhattan is not exactly a country club friendly city. With limited space for golf courses and great lodge-esque clubhouses, the boathouse in Central Park is about the closest Manhattanites come to an afternoon at the club without leaving the city.

Luckily, the city is full of delicious clubhouse (or simply club) sandwiches. The Dish team took a week to dive into the most decadent double deckers around town.

To clarify, a proper club should have three slices of bread and be cut into four triangles. Held together by toothpicks, the bread should be toasted to help the loaded sandwich maintain composition. The traditional sammy is packed with bacon, turkey, lettuce, and tomato. However, the substitution of chicken or roast beef for the turkey is common, and cheese and mayo are frequent additions.

In typical Manhattan fashion, restaurateurs have thrown the club requirements out the window and incorporated ingredients like duck and lobster. And that’s not such a bad thing.

At the Bar @ Etats-Unis, there’s a lobster club served on white bread and tooth-picked.  Rosa Mexicano makes a pressed Mexican club with ham, grilled chicken, bacon, avocado and Chihuahua cheese with black bean-chipotle spread. ‘SNice revamped the dish to accommodate vegetarians. It’s made up of tofu, fakin’ bacon, and whole wheat bread. Blue Ribbon Bakery—as if I haven’t plugged them enough—has an irresistible duck club!

For more classic (but all cheese-inclusive) versions, Jerry’s club comes with ham, turkey, bacon, cheddar and swiss on sourdough. However, with no toothpick to hold the thing together, eating the hulky sandwich was nearly impossible.  Florent has a more manageable, tooth-picked and quartered classic, composed of smoked turkey, black forest ham, bacon, and swiss. JG Melon, though famous for their burger, also has a stellar turkey club. Lastly, the club at Grey Dog’s Coffee offered the most choice of meat and bread selections, though there were only two slices. Perhaps the tradition is lost in our city, but the clubs—if we can call them that—are still delicious.