Ruby & Rach

Meet Ruby and Rach. Not a couple of smoky-eyed barmaids but a pair of sandwiches. Big, juicy, fat sangers, in fact, full of corned beef and pastrami, swiss cheese and sauerkraut. They sit alongside Rebecca (an equally juicy smoked mushroom, swiss and slaw) and Charlie (tuna salad, pickled carrot and lettuce) as well as the less personably named Tongue (pickled veal tongue, peas pudding and piccalilli) on a long board full of sandwich types, a Deli Burger and even a Dirty Bird (smoked turkey breast, confit leg, slaw and cranberry).

Tony Gibson was a fine-dining chef - part of Sean Connolly's team at The Star, then at Manly Pavilion, among others. Now he's a serious sandwich-hand, smoker of meats, pickler of vegetables, baker of bialys and challah. Ruby & Rach is his personal project and riff on that increasingly familiar theme of ''upscale restaurant chef opting for more casual dining''.

Gibson's journey into sandwich world began a year or so ago at Pyrmont Growers' Market with a monthly stall that sells hundreds of Rubys, Rachs and Rebeccas and confirmed his sambo, smoking and fermenting skills for good and all. Six weeks ago he opened a daytime deli-diner above a pub on Castlereagh Street, sharing the stairs with a veritable United Nations of backpackers hauling luggage up and down from the hostel overhead.

Sandwiches come with slaw or potato salad. Some come with fries. The bread is either a light rye or Gibson's own eggy-yellow brioche-style challah (Jewish Sabbath bread). For those wanting a hotter lunch, there are daily specials - perhaps a veal schnitzel with slaw and green tomato relish or a marinated hanger steak with smoked potato mash.

And to complete the all-things-Jewish-mother picture, there's chicken soup with matzoh balls.

Oddly but rather delightfully, Gibson also serves poutine, Canada's answer to that school-kid fave of chips and gravy. The chips are doused in chicken gravy and served with curds. There's a pastrami version too.

A salad side might just alleviate the guilt, if you had any.

The room is a study in browns, including a reasonably tasteful series of pub-carpet swirls. A counter at one end dispenses bubbly sodas from Olive A. Twist, a Mudgee girl who makes fun cordials like Oh Regina (orange and ginger) served here in a little glass stopper-seal bottle with a straw. There's Single O drip-filter coffee too and daily breakfasts are on their way, including challah French toast, lox and house-baked bialys with schmear (bagel-ish rolls with cream cheese).

The backpackers should be so lucky.

Do… try Gibson's house-smoked pastrami.

Don't… worry if upstairs is full, the menu's also available downstairs.

Dish… Ah, the Ruby (aka Reuben). Or maybe the Rach.

Vibe… Basic browns. Upstairs above a pub.