London’s best Christmas sandwiches

Direct from London’s coolest neighbourhood, Camberwell, Mondo Sando’s ‘Kringle Club’ offers a marvellously moist take on your classic Christmas sarnie. Huge wedges of juicy chicken thigh with flavour-puckered skin still attached, a thrillingly zingy sprout kimchi slaw, and a sweet bacon and apricot stuffing, it’s a lot, but not too much. Medium-thick slices of toasted loaf hold everything in place, as does a humming gochujang and cranberry hot sauce. This is Christmas with heat, the sarnie equivalent of those mates who trot off to Bali for the festive season rather than deal with the cold temps back home. Get it at Cafe Mondo and rejoice. 

Some festive sandwiches mix things up - a squeeze of hot honey here; a Szechuan peppercorn there - but not Deeney’s Festive Toastie. Embracing Christmas with unapologetic fervour, layers of turkey, red cabbage, herby stuffing and a substantially oozy, gooey DBL (dense brie layer) are toasted between granary bread, complete with a roasted Brussels sprout on a stick. Sounding dry? Think again. This baby packs cranberry sauce, sage butter and comes with gravy for dipping. Think it might get all over your face? Wrong again. The bread retains complete structural integrity, and the way in which every bite has the texture and flavour of an entire Christmas dinner is nothing short of magic. This is not just a Christmas sandwich, it is what every Christmas sandwich should strive to be.

I've been rehearsing my whole life to eat a sandwich professionally. And even though I spin a dreidel rather than hang a bauble, count me in for Xmas sarnies. Vegetarian offerings often hit my thanks-but-no-thanks list: sweet potato, butternut squash etc. Guys, don’t replace the meat, do something new. Fortunately, Dusty Knuckle nailed the hell out of this. The gorgonzola doesn’t dominate, it’s more of a smearing than a main player. It’s the savoy cabbage, sprout tops, sticky onions and the popcorn-like candied rosemary walnuts that provide the major flavours. It has structural integrity, and flawless focaccia. DN have done a fantastic job. Notes, zero.

Be warned: fitting your gob around the Black Pig’s Christmas sarnie will leave you gurning and covered in gravy, so is best done in total privacy if you don’t want to be compared to Eating With Tod. This absolute monstrosity would probably satisfy two adults, with mounds of slow-roasted pork and cheesy leek béchamel. The red cabbage slaw offers some contrasting freshness, while the pecan, sage and onion crumble provides a nice bit of textural variety. If there’s one criticism, it’s that the cranberry sauce is overpoweringly sweet. But this is certainly a solid effort from the Borough Market sarnie slingers. Just be sure to schedule a nap afterwards.

The Yule is a huge hunk of a vegan sandwich. Every element of a plant-based Christmas dinner has been lobbed at it; seitan ‘TRKY’, roasted potatoes, agave glazed parsnips, chestnuts, red cabbage, sage and onion chutney, cranberry jelly. Yet the sheer quantity means things get a bit lost. The flavours that really hit are the deeply caramelised onion gravy and smears of mustard. The lightly toasted sourdough is tasty too, but doesn’t do the best job of keeping this mammoth construction intact.

Can you really call ‘Let it Pho, Let it Pho’ a Christmas sandwich? Apart from its punny name and the fact it comes with a mulled pho broth, there’s not anything too festive about it. What you do get though is a lovely soft roll stuffed with a big wodge of thin beef slices. They are nicely tender and rare and have the aniseedy fragrance that you’d expect from a bowl of pho. This is accompanied by a handful of beansprouts, some sliced chillies and bitter leaves which I assume to be Thai basil. Not that festive, but decent nonetheless.

Fink’s Xmas sarnie lacks in substance what it has in girth. The chewy potato sourdough from Dusty Knuckle is lovely and fresh, as are the thick slabs of turkey – but the distribution is all off. There’s an excessive amount of sauce (a mixture of cranberry, butter and mustard) which overwhelms everything else, while the sprout tops don’t deliver the much-needed crunch this sandwich needs.

This Franken-sarnie – part BLT, part leftovers – has the kind of heft I’m looking for during the season of excess. The soft, pillowy roll is stuffed with a generous helping of smoked turkey, which is moist, tender and every bit not the desertic turkey of my childhood Christmases. That said, I could have done with a little less of it. Or at least, a little more of everything else. The promised zing of spiced cranberry sauce and earthiness of cajun fried onions never quite registers, and I miss the crunch of fresh lettuce, with just a few leaves hiding under a mountain of meat.

This festive offering is described as a ‘Christmas sandwich/burger’ which is essentially a euphemism for ‘it’s a burger’ although actually a better description would be ‘fiery mountain of stodge’. This is not to be dismissive: nobody expects a Christmas sandwich(or burger) to be light. And it’s a very witty mountain of stodge, which piles sprout slaw, hash brown stuffing, scotch bonnet cranberry jam, brie, mayo and a jerk fried turkey fillet in a normcore brioche bun. That’s a clever riff on Christmas lunch but essentially quite bland – so to accompany there’s a hysterically spicy pot of gravy that certainly peps it up but essentially feels a bit mismatched. Ultimately it's pretty weird, but not at all unappealing, and certainly thoughtfully made. Grab it at Kerb Social Club in Old Spitalfields Market.

A foot-long, sauce-slathered meat beast, and the winner of this very competition last year. Presented on a mound of perfectly fried onions, with a bun of burnished gold, the Stakehaus Xmas offering is a real festive looker. Working away under the bonnet you've got the parts needed for a good time: crispy breadcrumbs, verdant cavolo nero and oh-so-tender steak. It's definitely on the classier end of the sarnie spectrum, but the horseradish mayo and cauliflower cheese sauces prevent it from getting boring or dry. Still a contender. Find it at Seven Dials Market in Covent Garden.