Sydney's best sandwiches 2015

Behold our baker's dozen of the best sandwiches in Sydney.

Is there a more perfect lunch than a sandwich? Is it OK to have a sandwich for breakfast and dinner too? Two bits of bread with some other stuff in the middle, invented by a 200-year-old aristocrat and enjoyed by millions every single day. Sandwiches are magic and Sydney's home an unbelievable amount of good ones. We couldn't even settle on 10 of the best this year, we had to go for the full baker's dozen.

Food trends come and go but sandwiches are eternal, and everyone has their own rules when it comes to making them perfect. So we asked the geniuses behind Sydney's best sarnies to pass on a tip or two. Try not to salivate while you read and you might just learn something.

Keep the crunch on the inside: Baloney sandwich at ACME

The award for the most Instagrammed sandwich of the year goes to ACME and its super-cute baloney sandwich – a soft potato roll stuffed with slices of mortadella and a dollop of slightly spicy tomato relish. ACME's head chef Mitch Orr is going for nostalgia, creating a delicious homage to the devon and tomato sauce sangas he used to take to school. He sourced the mortadella while working at 10 William Street and tweaked chef mate Danny Russo's ketchup recipe – but Orr reckons the most important part of his baloney sandwich is the roll, specifically how soft it is. "I hate eating bread that cuts the roof of your mouth when you bite into it," he says. "I like soft bread. It should be like a pillow. Maybe that's the white boy in me. It also has to be fresh. Do not make a sandwich with stale-ass bread."

60 Bayswater Road, Rushcutters Bay, 8068 0932

Cheese is essential: Thai green curry jaffle at Ms G's

Breville has been the hot name in Sydney's kitchens this year – Dan Hong ran up the Merivale credit card a few thousand dollars in jaffle makers for the tastiest new starter on the Ms G's menu – a white bread toastie filled with a Thai green curry of tender braised beef shin and stringy buffalo mozzarella. "I grew up eating jaffles as a kid." Hong reminisces, "leftover spaghetti bolognese was a personal favourite. The best dishes are the ones that remind you of your childhood, it was only natural that we would put a jaffle on the menu – but we wanted to put something on it that you would never think to at home. First we played around with mapo tofu before settling on the green curry. In both versions we added buffalo mozzarella because a jaffle without cheese is like hamburger without the pickles."

155 Victoria Street, Potts Point, 9240 3000

Hot is best: Chicken banh mi at KK Bakery, Cabramatta

Sydney's undisputed best pork roll is at Marrickville Pork Roll (read the last 50 Good Food Guides for proof) but what about the best chicken banh mi? Although Ken Luu, the owner of KK Bakery in Cabramatta, tells me they sell way more pork rolls each day, I always go for the roll filled with shredded chicken marylands, slow roasted in a rich masterstock. Ken reckons the reason his banh mi are so popular is because of the freshness of the bread, which they serve pretty much straight from the oven. "When the bun is crispy, the inside is soft, hot and fresh, the customers prefer it," he says. "If you make the bun overnight or keep it out too long, the bun is not crispy and it's not as good." They also make their pate every day as well as the plethora of pickled vegetables, best of which are the big sticks of sweet daikon. "It's a lot of work to do, but fresh is quality and fresh is best." At $4 a roll it's also one of the best value sandwiches on this list too.

2/85 John Street, Cabramatta, 9755 0656

Keep it spicy! Nahm prik num on sourdough at Boon Cafe

2015's hottest newcomer burned a few tongues with its selection of Thai classics served on sourdough. For the first time ever you can get spicy Thai sausage, soft boiled eggs and pickled cabbage covered in spicy nahm prik num (green chilli relish) and served between two slices of bread. Chat Thai's director Palisa Anderson came up with the combo when she opened Boon Cafe in February. "At Chat Thai we used to serve the nahm prik num with steamed vegetables, fresh herbs, our house sai oua sausage and soft boiled egg," she says. "At Boon the sandwich still has the same proteins and the nahm prik num is the exact same recipe, the heat level hasn't been toned down at all." The main difference is the replacement of rice with bread. "We use Brickfields sourdough with our sandwiches because we love it – lashed with cultured Gympie butter. You know when it's a good sandwich when you even eat the crust."

425 Pitt Street, Haymarket, 9281 2114

As much pig as possible: Crackles Classic at Mr Crackles

Putting Oxford Street kebab joints out of business since 2013, Mr Crackles' Crackles Classic is the pre-hangover combo of hot roast pork belly, pickled vegies and crackling that's bought by 1500 different people on a busy Saturday (they roast an average of a tonne of pork belly every week). "We were going for a banh mi vibe but with real meat, something that'll fill you up and is a bit more satisfying," says Mr Crackles himself, Sam Horowitz. His true secret to a successful roast pork sandwich? "There's gotta be a piece of crackling with every bite."

155 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, 8068 2832

Make everything fresh: Adana kebab at New Star Kebabs

Forget shawarma. It might be warm and delicious but it's got nothing on the adana, that long tube of minced lamb, cooked smokily over charcoal and wrapped in a fresh piece of Turkish bread, surrounded by red cabbage and onions. You can get an adana kebab from several of the smoke billowing kebab-eries on Auburn Road, but New Star Kebabs makes the best. Owner Atilla Tok says the key to a good kebab is ensuring everything is as fresh as possible: "Give the people what they pay for and no one can get unhappy. We prepare everything fresh, we use the best quality meat, marinated every morning, cooked on the coals fresh for every order."

15 Auburn Road, Auburn, 9643 8433

Don't forget your roots: Poached chicken and celeriac coleslaw and lettuce sandwich at Malibu

When the only thing that can get you through your work day is a sandwich the size of your head, there's no better place to go to than Malibu, whose team of Marcella Nelson-Aebi and Marc Aebi have sold famously enormous sandwiches all over Sydney for more than a decade. Marcella learnt her sandwich skills from her family, her father had a sandwich shop in Surry Hills when she was a child. Marcella says Malibu's big and rich sandwich fillings came from her mother. "My mother influenced me with her background, the combinations of chicken and coleslaw, schnitzel with potato salad, those are the classic eastern European flavours I grew up with."

62 Foster Street, Surry Hills, 9280 2233

Serve it with chips: Deli Rose at the Yellow Deli

Possibly the weirdest place to eat a sandwich in NSW, the Deli Rose stacks hot slices of roast beef and silverside with hot peppers, provolone and special sauces on a house-baked onion roll. Funded by a religious cult, the Yellow Deli is a favourite destination for Pinbone's Mike Eggert. "The multi-meat ensemble is one of the first things that begins to settle your nerves as you sit uncomfortably in creepy carved wooden furniture and are served by one of the 12 identical Mormon staff," he says. "Most importantly though, they serve kettle chips on the side of the sandwich. That's a classic combo and one that's not seen enough in Sydney."

214 Katoomba Street, Katoomba, 4782 9744

Find the perfect balance: Chicken katsu baguette at Lucky Pickle

All of Lucky Pickle's sandwiches are worth trying, each featuring a rich and heavy meat that's made surprisingly light after being balanced by crisp pickles and vegetables. "Just like drinking beer while playing pool, finding that perfect balance is a tricky thing to master," says Arash Katrak, the creator of Sydney's best chicken katsu sambo. "Pickles can work extremely well to balance a sandwich that is heavy on the meat. The katsu sandwich has a good textural balance, with soft veg making a nice contrast to the crunchy panko coat of the fried chicken."

Shop 3, 509-511 Crown Street, Surry Hills

White bread only: Nutella, marshmallow and banana jaffle at Tartine

The perfect dessert sandwich: a colourful mess of Nutella, banana and marshmallows that will burn the roof of your mouth and stain your hands brown, yellow and pink. Luckily it tastes amazing, a goopy combo of all the best sweet things, housed in buttery bread and served at Tartine in Mascot. The man behind it is Anthony Telford who says it's almost like a sundae in a sandwich. "You look for those classic combinations and you just stuff it in bread. It's not rocket science, it's things you grew up with." His advice for those who want to be as adventurous as he is? "Always use square white bread, anything else is sacrilege and won't fit in the jaffle iron anyway. If you really wanna step it up you need to get a deep dish jaffle iron which allows you to fit more fillings in!"

635 Gardeners Road, Mascot, 9700 9847

Don't overpower the main event: Barbecue brisket sandwich at Vic's Meat Market

Could it be? Southern style barbecue in Sydney that does the opposite of suck? Vic's Meat Market has done the impossible, serving up juicy smoked beef brisket that even the proudest Texan wouldn't spit out. It takes 10-12 hours to get brisket this good – and pitmaster Anton Hughes has one important piece of advice: "Don't overpower the meat. Choose a simple slaw and nothing that is going to overpower the smokey meat flavour. Don't overload the slaw either, it's really just adding a refreshing crunch to the sandwich."

50-60 Bank Street, Pyrmont, 8570 8570

Don't leave the vegetarians out: Egg, seaweed, crispy shallot, iceberg roll at Waterman's Lobster Co

Waterman's Lobster Co might be responsible for finally bringing a decent lobster roll to Sydney, but the real star of the menu is the humble egg roll, created by Mike Eggert from Pinbone. "We made sure the vegetarian sandwich was as decadent as the other sambos on the menu." he tells us. "People go nuts when you say 'lobster roll' so to get the same response from vegetarians we tried to connect with their childhood memories. Everyone loved it when their mum made them an egg salad sandwich so we made it even better – first by leaving out the soggy bread that's been squashed after five hours in your school bag – then we made sure the eggs were as creamy as possible, added some nori for umami which enhances the egg flavour, used a really good mayo and most importantly, crammed the bun with a tonne of melted butter while it toasts before adding the eggs."

5/29 Orwell Street, Potts Point, 9380 2558

Put a pickle on it: New England style shrimp roll at the Gretz

Dank dive bar the Gretz has a handful of decent sambos on its menu, including a very decent Cubano, but the others are easy to forget once you've eaten one of their soft white buns stuffed to the brim with warm prawns, mayonnaise and pickles. It's the prawn and pickle combo that gets you hooked, and when asked how they came up with it, head chef Todd King had a very simple answer. "Who doesn't love a pickle? They're fun to make, great to eat, they really help balance out the entire roll and stop it being too rich. I put pickles on anything, I'm deadset waiting for the day they make pickle flavoured Skittles."

125 Enmore Road, Enmore