Épicerie Boloud and Untitled: Outlandish takes on lunchbox favorites prove that sometimes the basics are better

Leftover meatloaf is a dirty little religion, one best practiced cold on Wonderbread with barbecue sauce. I love a good meatloaf sandwich—its greasy white streaks of fat, its crumbling gray corners, its rosy medium-rare center—and I am skeptical of the good little bourgeois who scampers after more delicate victuals. We petite saints of the supermarket prefer suburban vulgarities, not the frisky treats of restaurant gods.

At Épicerie Boulud, Daniel Boulud’s haute cafeteria across from Lincoln Center, the Pâté de Campagne sandwich tastes like cold meatloaf. So I like it just fine. That is, I like it just fine for brown bag lunching, not burning through a $20 bill. Although this sandwich aspires to greater heights than ground chuck on white, it merely matches fancy words with mediocre flavors. “Pork and chicken liver pate, friseé, grain mustard and cornichon on country bread.” Translation: meatloaf, lettuce, mustard, pickle, on wheat. Despite Boulud’s best efforts, however, a certain je nais sais quoi feels lost in translation.

In a slow, subtle, and insidious stream, highfalutin sandwiches have descended on Manhattan. These patrician posers simulate more plebeian desires—for instance, Épicerie Boulud offers the “Jambon Beurre,” which is essentially a ham sandwich. Except! Except it features house-made Parisian ham, salted butter, gruyère, and a demi baguette. Except it costs double the going deli rate. Except it doesn’t taste nearly as delicious as a more coarsely bred sandwich, one made from Boar’s Head charcuterie, a little Land O’ Lakes butter, and Kraft American Singles.

Or take Boulud’s Cubano, which is essentially a Cuban sandwich. Except it features suckling pig confit, jambon de Paris, gruyère (yet again), house-made pickle, triple mustard, and pressed ciabatta. Except it costs double the going Cuban diner rate. Except it doesn’t taste nearly as delicious as the real deal, made on a Cuban loaf with yellow mustard, cheap roast pork, regular ol’ ham, Swiss cheese, and dill pickle slices. The Épicerie Boulud variation oozes pig fat—slick and adhesive and tacky as Elmer’s glue. Worse, the sandwich tastes too riche and comes at half the size of a non-haute sandwich.

Across town, Danny Meyer’s latest museum restaurant, Untitled, taps into a similar vein of sandwich nostalgia. Try an aged gouda grilled cheese with mushrooms and roasted tomatoes—fitter for the Hamptons than for dunking in Campbell’s. Untitled’s tuna melt on rye extends the grilled cheese theme: paying more for a sandwich that tries to approximate a sandwich that costs less. How good can a tuna melt get, and how much are people willing to pay for it? The crucial philosophical problems of our generation.

The haute sandwich lives by an extortionist logic: buy ingredients high, sell nostalgia higher. While it is possible for artisanal meats and cheeses to improve or elevate an otherwise ordinary lunch, the haute sandwich mutes its humbler brother. Why not experience the original ham sandwich, Cuban, grilled cheese, or tuna melt? Paying a premium for a memory that’s easily homegrown—the meatloaf sandwich is not a daunting home economics challenge—is perverse. Enjoy every sandwich, but enjoy some more than others.