Hackney’s Fine Dining Duo Brings Globetrotting Sandwiches to Coal Drops Yard

The duo behind Pidgin, the Hackney tasting menu restaurant that reinvents itself every week and claims never to have repeated a single dish in the four years it has been open, will launch their third business (their second restaurant, Magpie on Heddon Street, closed in March) at Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross on 9 September. Sons and Daughters, James Ramsden and Sam Herlihy’s 28-seater “take on a classic sandwich shop” will open all day, serving a range of sandwiches rooted in tradition, but given plenty of cheffy treatment, influenced by America, Japan, Italy, and the Middle East. It will also serve soft serve, beer, and cocktails.

A sandwich van is open while the build is in progress, and will be open as a quick service operation when the bricks-and-mortar shop kicks off. It is currently serving the mortadella; egg; and tenderstem sandwiches, as well as a chip butty, drinks, and smaller snacks. The mortadella sandwich’s Thai basil and “tasty paste” — a proprietary, umami-heavy sandwich spread based on smoked tomatoes — really makes things sing.

The lunch and dinner menu — which will be overseen by head chef Jacqueline Barbosa, previously of the Guinea Grill and Where the Pancakes Are — will feature six sandwiches when it launches next month:

1. Chicken: Swaledale chicken, pickled cucumber, miso mayonnaise, green sauce, soy-cured parmesan, gem lettuce, and wasabi cress — served on white bloomer.
2. Merguez: Swaledale spicy lamb sausage, S+D air-fries, pickled shallots, gremolata, and S+D mayo — served on baguette.
3. Mortadella: Mortadella, taleggio, smoked Isle of Wight tomato, rocket, Thai basil, and cider vinaigrette — served on focaccia.
4. Prawn: Cornish prawns, S+D mayo, prawn crackers, crispy shallots, Napa cabbage, and shiso — served on granary.
5. Egg salad: Burford Brown eggs, miso mayonnaise, truffle crisps, and salad cress — served on white bloomer.
6. Tenderstem: Tenderstem broccoli, mushroom relish, coconut sambal, açai, and cashew cream — served on baguette. (vegan)

James Ramsden

Bread is supplied by Paul Rhodes Bakery in Greenwich, with meat from Swaledale in Yorkshire, and salad leaves from Growing Underground, a sustainable underground farm which grows fresh micro greens and salad leaves 33 metres below the streets of Clapham in south London.

Ramsden told Eater that the duo chose Paul Rhodes bakery for its ability to create a more traditional sandwich bread. “We tried a load of suppliers to find someone who made a really classic white bloomer that was lovely and pillowy with a good chew on the crust,” he said. “Paul Rhodes [was] best by a long way. We’ve worked with Dusty Knuckle and E5 at Pidgin, both of whom we respect hugely and adore their bread, but didn’t feel their style was right for what we want to do with our sandwiches.”

James Ramsden/Sons and Daughters

Sides

Sides will include “air fries” (non-deep-fried potato chips) with Sriracha salt and a pickle plate, plus salads, like burrata (duh) with Isle of Wight tomato gem lettuce, avocado and cucumber dressing, smoked almonds, and croutons; or red rice, lentils, beetroot, roasted kale, carrot vinaigrette, and cress.

Dessert

Soft serve ice creams, including peanut butter and jelly; and candied focaccia with rosemary.

Breakfast

Served from 8a.m., will include the breakfast muffin, served on a toasted English muffin, with creamed Burford Brown eggs, a proprietary breakfast spice, smoked tomato, and American cheese, with the option of adding smoked bacon or sausage.

The vegan breakfast muffin will include a spiced corn fritter, roasted tomato, pumpkin seeds, and herbs. There will be bircher muesli with oats, apple juice, almond milk, chia, almonds, coconut syrup, apple, cacao, and candied walnut, apparently designed to service the wellness crowd. A selection of cakes and pastries, including a cherry Danish, cinnamon scroll and flourless chocolate cake, are for other customers. Sons and Daughters will also serve Cross Town Doughnuts’ vegan Sicilian Lemon Doughnut.

Bar

A bar menu will offer snacks in the evening: Bloomer bread finger sandwiches, including mortadella with truffled cream cheese; smacked cucumber with tahini, Sichuan chilli oil, and tofu smoosh; fish finger, pickled jalapeño, and American cheese; and miso-maple-cinnamon-cream cheese with seasonal fruit. Even smaller snacks will include spice-roasted nuts, Nocellara olives, truffle crisps, onion rings and pecorino, and Furikake-dusted popcorn.

Drinks

Cocktails are by World of Zing, including a Bordeaux cask barrel-aged negroni, a peach tea julep, a Thai basil and pineapple mojito, and a house BLT Cocktail. There will also be a nitro coffee martini from east London coffee roaster Climpson & Sons.

Non-alcoholic drinks will include a scotch bonnet kombucha and a mother root ginger switchel, plus what the duo call their own “salty and sweet creation, MisoMilk.”

Beers, including Braybrooke’s Keller Lager and peanut butter crunch milk stout from Hammerton will be on offer, as well as a selection of kegged wines from Uncharted Wines.

More soon.