It is well worth a visit to the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, north east London, to view the incredible work of the revolutionary Victorian designer and craftsman. While many people can be seen enjoying a wander around the galleries, you can often find the biggest crowds in Deeney’s Café, which took space in the gallery in 2022 after the success of its original outlet in nearby Leyton. 

What draws people into the compact café is undoubtedly its toasted sandwich-focused menu. On my visits around lunchtime, the two industrial toasting machines are invariably going full throttle as they are constantly loaded up with the six varieties of sandwich on offer. 

They can often sell as many as 100 of the crunchy delicacies in a day, and with prices around the £10 mark, this represents pretty good business. In the mix is its distinctive Hamish Macbeth variant containing haggis, which has been described as among London’s best sandwiches by the Evening Standard, Time Out and Buzzfeed

Another upside of offering this cuisine is the restricted space in the café and the fact the toasties can all be pre-prepared off-site and ready to plonk straight into the toasters. Yet another key factor in favour of the toastie is the fact pretty much everyone likes them. There’s little doubt a hefty percentage of the UK population is extremely partial to melted cheese in toasted bread. If you squint, the toastie has some similarities to that globally-revered dish – the pizza. 

This has been recognised in the US by pizza brand Papa John’s, which has just launched a concise range of oven-toasted sandwiches that comprises Philly Cheesesteak, chicken bacon ranch and steak and mushroom. It’s a rare diversion from the core menu for the company, which has been helped by the fact these sandwiches have recorded one of the lowest complexity scores across company-owned outlets and franchised units, who all like the ease of execution of toasted sandwiches. The added bonus is they also travel well – better than a pizza, for sure.

This ease of production has been noted by the pub sector. Where there is little or no kitchen space, there is always the opportunity to install a bog-standard toaster – if not a dedicated toasted sandwich machine – for cooking pre-prepared toasties. The compact two-bar Fuller’s-owned Ye Olde Mitre in London’s Holborn has long dispensed this dish – with four basic variants. 

With a bit of research, I’ve found Fuller’s offers toasted sandwiches at a variety of its Central London pubs where there is no space for kitchens. There are some impressive variations on offer out there, with the tiny Swan Tavern in the City offering seven options including the impressive sounding field mushroom, Emmental, basil and truffle oil toastie. Meanwhile, down the road at The Artillery Arms, there’s a smoked chicken, avocado, harissa and cheese creation.

Toasties have also been making their mark higher up the food chain, with the revered Wigmore’s XXL Stovetop three-cheese and mustard sandwich from Michel Roux served at The Wigmore pub, while an upgraded tuna melt, costing £18, is proving very popular at the immediately fashionable Dover Street Counter in London’s Mayfair. 

Of course, the toastie has long been the preserve of the Irish pub. During a week-long trip to Listowel for the racing festival, my diet of mainly Guinness was very well supplemented by the country’s toasted sandwiches. It has been a similar story during my many visits to Dublin and beyond, when the clicking sound of a shiny Dualit toaster has never seemed very far away.

Despite the love of the toastie in Ireland, Jack Brennan and Jacob Long reckoned there was a lack of a brand in this space and are addressing it through their Griolladh concept, which now has 11 outlets across Ireland serving create-your-own customisable toasties. The business is currently working on bringing the brand to the UK and conversations have centred on Birmingham and the capital for the maiden unit.

The toasted sandwich has never really gone away – since first referenced in Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management in 1861 – and with pubs continuing to experiment with finding financially workable models for their food propositions, it looks like we will be seeing even more of this very simple, adaptable and perennially-loved dish on menus.

Glynn Davis, editor, Beer Insider

This piece was originally published on Propel Info where Glynn Davis writes a regular Friday opinion piece. Beer Insider would like to thank Propel for allowing the reproduction of this column.