Time Out magazine has released its awards for the world’s best sandwich – and selected a French classic for the top spot.
Reporters from the US magazine claim to have tasted sandwiches from around the globe – and awarded first place to France’s jambon beurre – the simple French classic comprising ham and butter in a fresh-baked baguette.
Time Out specifically rated the jambon beurre from Le Petit Vêndome bistro in Paris’ second arrondissement as the best in the world.
The somewhat hyperventilating explanation for the award goes thus: “What do Mark Zuckerberg, a broke intern and supermodel Kate Moss all have in common? They’ve all trodden the vintage tiles of this authentic Parisian bistrot, which is a relic of the ’60s.
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“Le Petit Vendôme is decorated in yellow and red formica, there are cheesy piggy banks everywhere, and obscene amounts of ham and sausage hang on the butcher’s fangs. It’s hell for vegans and heaven for us meat-lovers.
“Here, jambon beurre (ham and butter sandwich) is a piece of art. They’re made to order and prepared in front of you using Julien Bakery’s award-winning baguettes, gobs of super-fresh craft butter and ribbons of ham straight from the bone. It puts the tasteless pink stuff from the supermarket to shame. If you could eat, feel and smell the City of Lights, this would be it.”
Happily you don’t need to go all the way to Paris to sample this – the jambon beurre is a French classic, voted number one time and again in the annual Sandwichs préféres des français poll.
They’re sold everywhere, or you can obviously make your own, but for a sandwich this simple getting the best ingredients is crucial – a freshly-baked baguette, ideally a baguette de tradition made by an artisan baker, thick-sliced ham from the butcher (not that wafer thin packet stuff from supermarkets) and one of France’s best butters, we like a demi-sel from Normandy but there are lots of choices for high-quality butters made from the milk of grass-fed cows.
This is the recipe for sandwich heaven, confirmed by Time Out’s researchers.
Do you agree with The Local and Time Out? Can you name a better French sandwich? Or even a sandwich from those nations unfortunate enough not to be France? Share your views in the comments section below