Simply Sandwiches

I’ve got to get this out of the way up front – I hate the name “Grandaisy“. This bakery used to be called the Sullivan Street Bakery – a nice, professional-sounding, New York kind of name. But even before it moved away from Sullivan Street (and, happily, closer to my office), it adopted this new moniker, and I just can’t seem to get used to it. The baked goods, pizzas and sandwiches are so good, though, that I’m more than willing to ignore the name. The new space (250 West Broadway at Beach St.) is larger than the previous one, with lots of sunlight and a few seats.

Grandaisy’s bread, which contributes to both the wonderful flatbread pizzas and the rotating selection of sandwiches, is the brainchild of Jim Lahey, who recently attracted attention with the opening of  Co. pizzeria. This bread is serious stuff – it takes something as simple as the pomodoro pizza (just bread and tomato sauce) and makes it into a complex eating experience: chewy, flavorful and satisfying.

But this is a sandwich blog, so I’ll move on to the sandwiches. Grandaisy offers a daily selection of 2 or 3 different sandwiches, both vegetarian and meaty. On recent visits the most interesting options have been the veggie ones, so I present you with the most breakfast-y sandwich I’ve eaten for lunch in a while (since I scarfed down a Defonte’s egg and potato sandwich after their Manhattan location opened).

The spaghetti squash, butter, and apricot jam sandwich ($5), studded with golden raisins and walnuts, would have been way too sweet without the bread. I think throwing in some salty prosciutto or peppery arugula would have evened things out a lot, but even with the sweetness, I couldn’t find fault with this sandwich. The squash provided mostly a background texture, with the flavor coming from the jam and the ungodly amount of (excellent) butter slathered everywhere. Encountering the occasional raisin or walnut was a nice surprise, though there could have been a few more nuts, in my opinion. And the bread – the crust was so crisp my entire office turned towards me when I first bit into it, yet the interior was perfectly moist and chewy, with a lovely, open crumb. The bread perfectly balanced out the softness of the fillings. While the sandwich felt more like eating jam and bread for breakfast, and probably won’t fill you up if you’re starving at lunchtime, it’s a tasty snack from a fantastic bakery – and if you’re still hungry, there are pizza slices and baked goods to tide you over.

The sandwiches are straightforward, but made with fantastic ingredients:

Full frontal:

Check out the crazy amount of butter:

The packaging looks nice (even if the name is silly):