Polpetta @ Moll & Joel’s Rolls
7 Long Lane, Garston, L19 6PE
We’re deep in Christmas sandwich season now. The annual listicles of the best supermarket offerings have been published. Posters of turkey and stuffing butties adorn the window of every chain coffee shop (except at Caffe Nero where it’s a soft-focus shot of a porchetta ciabatta; Buon Natale).
The problem is, they’re all bad. It starts with brie — which is not, and never will be, a sandwich cheese — and goes downhill from there. Super-sweet cranberry sauce, sprout and parsnip tortured into a ‘slaw’ and layer upon layer of dry, flavourless poultry. Terrible.
It’s not that I won’t be indulging in some great sandwiches over the festive season, they just won’t have pigs in blankets crammed into them.
At Moll and Joe’s Rolls, a new coffee shop and bakery in Garston, there’s no Christmas special on offer (at least not yet) but I’d defy anyone to eat here and not leave feeling full of good cheer.
The cafe’s own signage declares it ‘Italian inspired’ and, between the hiss of the espresso machine, the framed AS Roma jersey hanging on the wall and 70s soft rock on the stereo, the place does have the feeling of a neighbourhood bar in Trastevere. The £3.50 bottles of red label Peroni don’t hurt either.
But while the sandwiches here might be named for far-flug corners of the boot (The Napoli; The Capri) their fillings (fried mortadella, swiss cheese and pickles; prosciutto, salami and garlic aioli) are pure Italian-American.
Maybe it’s unsurprising given this is the second outing from former UFC flyweight Molly McCann and Joel McCarthy, the pair who brought us Polpetta. The excellent pasta kitchen based in Baltic Market has a line in vodka-parm subs that would be the stuff of Tony Soprano’s dreams (the ones that don’t involve talking fish, anyway).
Fittingly, it’s the Polpetta sandwich that is the pick of the menu at Moll and Joel’s. Three hefty but meltingly soft meatballs made with a mix of pork and beef, a rich and sweet tomato sugo with good hit of garlic, melted mozzarella and a bed of peppery whole basil leaves. All served of a pillowy house-baked focaccia, flecked with crystals of salt.
A proper sandwich to enjoy this Christmas, and no ‘sage and onion mayo’ in sight.
