Be'wiched Deli

Rating:

Finally, someone in this town is taking the sandwich seriously. Boy, are they ever.

At Be'wiched, chefs/co-owners Matthew Bickford and Michael Ryan have scrupulously adapted the high-end culinary practices of their former employers (La Belle Vie, Restaurant Alma, D'Amico Cucina) to an everyday dining staple. It's simple mathematics: Add exceptional ingredients and top-notch craftsmanship to a taken-for-granted genre, and the sum will definitely exceed its parts. Why didn't someone think of this before?

The best of Be'wiched's paper-wrapped beauties radiate a kind of inevitability, as if each represented countless experiments that were elegantly refined to a single, triumphant idea. Turkey is embellished with rich dates, tangy chèvre and delicate frisée dressed in a bacon vinaigrette. Layer upon layer of succulent roast beef, so irresistible it could easily stand on its own, somehow manages to grow in stature when it's married to a sweet onion jam, a blazing horseradish crème fraîche and a quick spritz of olive oil and red wine.

Unlike many barbecue-style sandwiches, where the smoky-sweet notes have all the subtlety of a KTLK shock jock, the pulled pork at Be'wiched is all about nuance: There's a little smoke, a smidgen of cinnamon-coriander-cumin heat, a slight molasses sweetness, and they all convene in fat forkfuls of low-and-slow cooked pork that seductively melts in your mouth. Coarsely grated slaw adds to the party, and the fine onion bun acts as a perfect envelope.

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