A scrawled blackboard menu usually signifies a food offering that’s in constant flux, a snapshot of the moment – miss it and it may be gone forever. At Paul Rothe & Son however, whose expansive blackboard menu sails over the sandwich counter like a celebratory birthday banner, it indicates a place that’s indefatigably old-school, where nothing really changes, a steadfast bulwark against the whims and fads of modern city life. For this place has been around since 1900, handed down the generations like a treasured family heirloom.

Stepping through the chocolate box frontage, and you’re stepping back in time, into an Aladdin’s cave of condiments, a magical place of heaving shelves and shimmering jars. The counter is lined with bowl after bowl of pâté and pickles, mixes and fillers, home-roasted meats and deli delights – all ready to be layered between slices of bread or the embrace of a bun. Or, if you’re feeling particularly exotic: a ciabatta.

Those who, like me, are cursed with indecision may feel somewhat paralysed by the permutations. In which case step aside from the queue, and just enjoy mulling over the options:

– Hot frankfurter with German mustard and sauerkraut

– Liptauer cheese of cream cheese mixed with paprika, chives, capers, caraway seeds and anchovy paste

– Home cooked fresh salmon

– A mix of salt beef, mustard, dill and cornichons

– Creamed stilton and caraway seed

– Home cooked roast beef with horseradish

– Continental liver sausage

…perhaps fantasise over a select few and savour them all, as though in some kind of quantum sarnie-verse. Eventually though, you will make that choice – my most recent being a rich creamy smoked mackerel pâté on granary with slices of gherkin (suitably ridged). Then admire how each sandwich is crafted to an exacting level of precision, its architecture balanced just right, and then wrapped up as meticulously as if it were a precious set of porcelain tea-cups.

You can eat in, but if it’s a fine day, best head up Marylebone Lane to Regent’s Park, where you’ll find a welcoming patch of grass in amongst the deckchairs and rosebeds. And now you’ve got yourself a perfect picnic, and what can be better than that.

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Paul Rothe & Son
35 Marylebone Ln, London W1U 2NN

This piece is just a little sandwich filler, while I’m working on a more substantial piece.  For a more in-depth feature on London’s sandwich scene, here’s Jonathan Nunn’s ‘Towards a Unified Theory of Sandwiches’ in Vittles. Meanwhile, on the topic of picnics, feel free to check out my reflections on memorable picnics over the years in ‘Picnic As…’.

Paul Rothe & Son