The best of the Dishoom menu, as everyone knows, is contained in the small plates section where paus, bhels, fries and cheese toasts abound. Shree Krishna Vada Pav is what happens when the menu is only this — 70+ Maharastrian snacks inspired by Bombay and its Chowpatty Beach made for the Gujarati communities of Harrow and Hounslow. For homesick expats missing their native foods in London, these share a curious affinity with snack culture from the north of England and Scotland: any fried carbs available are stuffed in between soft barms; think samosas, vadas, bhajis, along with various puris and wraps sprinkled with sev and Desi-Chinese curries. The paneer bomb, a light tomato curry of paneer, stuffed into bread and then deep fried, is an innovation any Glaswegian chippy would be proud of.

John and Michael Georgiou’s Ashkenazi-Jewish deli in Edgware is the custodian of arguably the best deli sandwiches in the city. If pastrami is the meat of choice in New York, then London’s pick is surely salt beef, austerely seasoned and thick-sliced, perfectly rosy with flavoursome inlets of fat. Here, it’s the melt-on-the-tongue tongue that is the standout, the texture of meat fudge melded with mustard and caraway. Portions, unlike Katz’s in New York aren’t ludicrously large, which means it’s possible to save room for latkes, possibly to insert into the sandwich, or a gigantic slice of lokshen pudding for dessert.

Some sandwiches don’t travel, as Will Smith well knows. In Fresh Prince of Bel Air, knowing that Will is homesick for his native Philly, the Banks family buy him an unrecognisable cheesesteak from a bougie shop in Beverley Hills. “Look at the bag, no grease stain” he points out. London cheesesteaks are much the same, and even with those executed with the utmost respect lose something in translation. So what does a London cheesesteak really look like? Maybe something like the shawarma sub from Al Enam, an Iraqi grill restaurant situated on the outskirts of Park Royal, where the Acton Business Centre has turned into a small hub for the local Lebanese and Iraqi communities. When chopped and sliced, its lamb shoulder has the gumminess that a good cheesesteak should have, with the cheese wizz replaced by tahini. Order tahini wit (pickles), and then devour immediately on the concrete. 

Falafel can be found all over London. Some of the best falafel are in Shepherd’s Bush. Keeping it classic will never fail, with the crunch of pickled turnips and cucumbers set against creamy hummus and those yielding chickpea nuggets. But, after a few game-changing visits, it’s time to up the ante: the falafel + ful medames subs in broad beans singing with garlic and cumin, while the falafel supreme adds feta, avocado and a revelatory pomegranate syrup to the mix.

This cafe run by two brothers on Finchley Road offers a raft of stellar weekend specials, falafels whose emerald glow speaks to their intensely herbed character, and one of London’s finest sandwiches: a sabich loaded with fried aubergine, hard boiled eggs, the bite of pickled mango, chilli sauce, and chips. The star turn surrounds that bounty: an impossibly fluffy pita, the lightness of which somehow supports the generosity of the filling.

In a world of unlimited choice it takes some gumption to open a shop with just two unchanging sandwich options, yet that is exactly what Panadera has done. It’s the latest addition to the Maginhawa Group, aka the JKS of Kentish Town Road, where Omar Shah and co-conspirator Florence Mae Maglanoc keep doing their best to open every single style of restaurant except straight Filipino. Panadera is the straightest so far: a bakery, doing everything from ube tarts to calamansi meringue with coffee roasted by fellow sandwichmakers Catalyst. The sandwiches here are a showcase for sweet and fluffy pandesal, which can either be filled with a lightly spiced, rich egg mayo or gooey corned beef hash encased in a croquette, both imaginatively showcasing what is too often considered a poor ingredient in a package that gives the renowned Tata Eatery sando a run for its money.

One of those old school stalwarts in the Soho rabbit warren: a proper Italian deli. It’s focaccia, it’s provolone, it’s parma ham, it’s mortadella, parmesan, it’s anchovies, it’s tomatoes, it’s mozzarella. It’s everything a lunchtime sandwich should be about — even all of those all at once, if so desired — and pricing is according to heft and luxury. So go ahead and add that black truffle. It’s there, so why not?

Few sandwiches — all of the ones on this list included — are as complete as the smoked eel number at Jeremy Lee’s Dean Street institution. The umami heft of smoked eel is cut first with piquant horseradish, and then the zing of pickled onion, all between lightly toasted — and crucially thin — sourdough. An institution all of its own.

Saturday mornings at Italo are devoted to the dark art of breakfast sandwiches, which here involve reclaiming breakfast as merely the first thing someone eats and thus taking carte blanche to stuff beautiful ingredients between ciabatta. Steak and mustard greens; fennel sausage and kale; soon, winter tomato with fried egg? There’s also porridge on the blackboard, but, no.

Max’s is perhaps the perfect crossover point of the Katz’s Deli-inspired monsters of Monty’s, and a distinctly tongue-in-cheek approach to menu development. In practice, that means that Max Halley’s sandwiches are basically what, in any other establishment, could be referred to as “meals”, wedged between two slices of focaccia: never sourdough. The ham, egg ‘n’ chips is a natural London favourite, but the Korean Gangster — soy braised beef, kimchi and kraut, baby gem and crispy noodles, swimming in gravy and mayo — is unbeatable.

Alexandros Gkikas continues to create something special at Catalyst, constantly evolving its version of Greek/definitely-not-Greek food that isn’t straitjacketed by moussaka. Take the retired, but signal example of the katsu sando, which is at heart a halloumi sandwich, except here three fingers have been breaded Birdseye style and come with a fried egg, plum ketchup, politiki — a pickled version of a cabbage salad whose name refers to Constantinople — and a coffee sriracha. In a single sandwich, references to Greece, Turkey, the UK, Australia and Thailand. The other sandwiches are as good: tartare sauce on thick cut bacon and egg; another bacon and egg, but this time with the latter chopped down into salad.

Bill Oglethorpe’s grilled cheese sandwich is a Borough legend, right up there with Brindisa’s chorizo roll. A heady mix of his own Ogleshield cheese, comté and Montgomery’s cheddar, it’s also laced with a wonderfully aromatic mix of leek and onion to create what is an oft-imitated classic.

Some may argue that a panuozzo is just a folded pizza but a folded pizza is bread wrapped around a filling, which makes it a sandwich. Fillings vary, with seasonal specials such as Parma ham, asparagus, mozzarella, and pine nuts; or Datterini tomatoes, gem lettuce, ham and house mayo. Among the regulars, however, is a surprise success story: tuna, mozzarella and black olive. The astute will draw a parallel with one of the world’s most reviled sandwiches, the tuna melt. So why does it work for Theo’s? Well, there’s a difference between skipjack-n-cheddar in a congealed panino and Ortiz tuna and Bianca la Bufala wrapped in pillowy fermented pizza dough. Just don’t forget a dollop of the addictive house chilli sauce.

Towpath’s classic, rarely bettered toasted cheese with quince jelly is one of few dishes to make the leap between solstices at this seasonal canalside hotspot. To be clear, this sandwich is not a meal, but a side, an essential accessory to whatever other warming, brazenly seasoned dishes make the cut.

Bell’s doesn’t sell the best sandwich in London, but there is perhaps no better example of where London has been and where it’s going. Here is a very British institution, the park cafe, selling that most British of all British-Italian food forms, the panini, filling it with Turkish kofte, chilli oil and American cheese, and serving it to the part of Bermondsey that does not yet see queues for sandwiches. There’s something of the essence of London in Bell’s: old institutions being refreshed by new faces, such that a fish finger sandwich sits handsomely on the menu alongside gozleme and bazlama. NB: The cafe is located in the Ellen Brown Children’s Centre, which some maps list as 145 Grange Road.

Few sandwich fillings are as lucky as those that make their home inside a fresh-from-the-tray Dusty Knuckle focaccia. The bread itself is a thing of wonder — all chewy, airy dough encased in blistered, salty crust — so filling it with the likes of chimichurri-marinated onglet and sweet’n’sour onions, or porchetta, quince and watercress, or roasted spiced cauliflower, tahini and soft-boiled egg makes for a sarnie that’s hard to beat.

There are two types of sandwich lovers: those willing to try anything, and those who might love everything but who will, when given the choice, always order the escalope sandwich. It is something of a fading art in London ─ brought over by the Italians but gone out of fashion, and often disrespected. Crossroads, a caff on the otherwise bougie Bellenden Road in Peckham, gets it. The bread is, crucially, soft and untoasted, a thick, doorstop white that traverses that liminal space between “terrible” and “not terrible.” The escalope is fried fresh, to a deep copper rather than a lazy tan. There is shredded lettuce, lemon, mayo and a little bit of hot sauce. That’s it. Bite into the bread, meeting resistance only at the barrier of escalope of its juices hotter than the sun, and gulp for fresh air.

The fluffy steamed pitas at this stall on Netil Market are stuffed with a rainbow of salad, freshly fried falafel of the smooth textured kind, hummus, tahina, zhoug, a fried battered slice of potato just to gild the lily and on request Itamar’s amba. He seemed worried about people liking it, but it’s possibly the mellowest and brightest tasting amba in London, mango pickle with pops of lemony acidity. The wrap be big enough for two sensible people to share, but really it’s just the perfect main course.

What is the best bacon and egg sandwich in London? Regency? Pellicci? St John? No. It’s the no 8 special (extra spicy) at Banh Mi Hoi An, located on a side street near Hackney Central. Not a single banh mi stall in London quite nails the the optimal lightness of the baguette, but Hoi An’s is soft, crisp, well toasted, and weapon-ready vast. The Hoi An special has both sweet char siu and thinly sliced pork belly, with little pockets of wobbly omelette coddling the meat; pickles cut through the richness in the manner of a sharp brown sauce. Aside from the egg and bacon, the beef ball curry banh mi is excellent when the chef has it on — needless to say, with the lack of any competition, it’s also the best meatball sub in this city.

Otis Wright’s Jamaican jerk chicken stand in the front yard of St. Augustine’s Tower, off Mare Street in Hackney Central, is responsible for some of east London’s best street food. From 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. every Wednesday to Sunday, one of Wright’s lesser-known menu items is the £5 jerk chicken sandwich. He debones a freshly grilled leg of chicken, rose-coloured from marination and smoke, adds some cabbage, carrots, onions, and a touch of gravy. Customers add their own hot sauce and/or mayonnaise.

For the early risers out at dawn Piggy’s Cafe is a ritual and a treasure. Offering the legendary sandwich stuffed with seared scallops and Bacon on buttered baps. The meeting place where simple pleasures are enjoyed... Until they move the whole thing out of London. Go while it still stands.