A cafe, deli and bakery serving up sangas and treats inspired by school canteens, country bakeries and other nostalgic Australian references. There's a big emphasis on native ingredients, plus you can grab pickles, condiments and more from the tidy little retail section to take home.

This petite, takeaway-focused sandwich shop at the leafy end of Potts Point offers no-nonsense sangas, strong coffees and a few bits and bobs for the pantry. There’s also a good range of salads, sweets and pastries.

A deli, wine store and by-the-gram pasta shop from the Ragazzi team. It’s also a lunchtime destination, serving up serious ciabattas filled with everything from porchetta to meatballs. We love the deli meat hero when it’s on the menu.

There’s always a line for this Vietnamese bakery’s excellent banh mi. But don't worry, it moves quickly. The pork roll here ranks among Sydney’s best, and the recipe hasn’t changed in 30-odd years. Not a pork fan? Go for the chicken, schnitzel or meatball roll instead.

Details are everything at this retro bakery in the city’s south. The team behind pizzeria My Mother’s Cousin are making sangas with cross-section charisma, fruit-filled danishes and sourdough worth lining up for.

A “no bullshit” sandwich deli doing cold-cut layered paninis, cracking chicken-schnitty rolls and spectacular salad sangas. Served from a canteen-style window next to a smash-repairs workshop in Rockdale.

Sandoitchi’s katsu is markedly different from its competitors. Where other cafe chefs and restaurateurs strive to find the softest sandwich bread possible, this one is a more textural option. It’s staked with salted cucumber, pickled carrots, nori, American-style cheese and tonkatsu-flavoured mayo.

This takeaway-focused, old-school sandwich shop makes some of Sydney’s best (and biggest) sangas. But you don’t need to take our word for it – the lengthy queues that form outside it every single weekday at lunchtime should tell you how good these beauties are.

A lockdown sandwich obsession is now a sunny, deli-style eatery with a strong sanga game. Its owner – a trained pastry chef with experience at Quay – is serving up a Korean fried mushroom and kimchi slaw sanga, a Hetty McKinnon-inspired miso, Vegemite and cheese toastie, and freshly baked burnt-butter choc-chip cookies.

A nostalgic, subterranean sandwich diner dedicated to big, hot and tasty sandwiches. Find all the classics from a French dip to a Turkey Club, along with Nashville fried chicken, shoestring fries and house-made ice-cream.

The nostalgic breakfast and lunch joint from the people behind Poly, AP Bakery and Paramount Coffee Project is doing stomping chicken and gravy rolls, bagels loaded with pistachio pesto and pickled zucchini, and fluffy-egg-and-hash-brown muffins. Plus, twice-baked macadamia croissants and cardamon morning buns from AP Bakery.

There’s a little bit of Porteño magic in every one of Humble’s excellent sandwiches. Past highlights by the team include porchetta; grilled Cape Grim short rib with salad and chimichurri; and big saucy meatballs.

The sanga selection at The Lucky Pickle may be concise, but the team here doesn’t skimp on quality – or value. Everything sits around the $15 mark, so it’s no wonder these rolls tend to sell out. The chicken katsu number is the one to order.

Excellent sandwiches, big salads and natural wines are the recipe for a good time at S’wich, a new-wave sandwich diner in the centre of Bondi. In the evenings it transforms into a bar with global craft beers, Margarita seltzers from Cantina OK, pre-mixed Campari spritzes and Negronis made in-house.

While you could add an egg to AP Bakery’s stunning bacon sarnie, there’s something to be said for leaving things as they were intended. In this case, that’s layers of thin and crispy bacon on a spongy fermented potato ciabatta smothered with aromatic curry leaf butter and hot sauce.

Loaf is the kind of sandwich shop where everybody gets what they want. Not only can you choose your style of bread, you can forgo it completely and turn any sanga on the menu into a salad. There are also plenty of extras available to customise your order.

Sydney’s first bona fide paninoteca is all about nailing the Italian sandwich. Come for the hero, loaded with five-hour slow-cooked pork and veal bolognese – but don’t leave without grabbing a fried-to-order Sicilian doughnut rolled in cinnamon sugar.

This hit chain brings New York energy and a hip-hop soundtrack to four locations in the CBD. It’s one of the only sandwich joints in town making its own pastrami – it’s smoked for eight hours, wrapped in foil and brined before being slow-cooked and sliced for the hero Reuben.

Named for the Earl who invented the sanga, John Montagu is putting plenty of thought between two slices of bread. The signature here is the braised beef cheek with cheddar, sauerkraut, Spanish onion and house glaze.

This family-run cafe makes a strong case for simplicity in a sanga. Mortadella, artichoke, provolone, mint and a lick of mayo between two thick slices of Brickfields bread is all you need for a spectacular lunch (or breakfast).

There’s no physical menu and no dine-in space, but the lines were out the door from day one of Merivale's cranking little pizza joint. Come for sexy slabs of Roman-style pizza and schiacciata sandwiches laden with Italian cold-cuts. But be warned – they tend to sell out.

You won’t miss the meat at this vegan sandwich bar. It’s by the same crew as Peppe’s in Bondi, so you know the fillings here are inventive and big on flavour. Throw Iggy’s Bread into the mix and you’ve got a topnotch vegan two-hander.

Anchored by its owners’ Polish heritage, this new-wave deli and cafe is big on sandwiches. The Reuben – a New York deli staple – is the occasional hero of the menu. The retail section is also teeming with smallgoods, pickles and condiments to take make your own stellar sandwiches at home.

The hefty Reuben at this corner cafe is a solid riff on the New York classic. You might also find a banging club sandwich with chicken, bacon, lettuce, tomato and house-made aioli.

This provedore and deli has you covered with rare cheeses and every fancy pantry item under the sun. But we’re here to talk about sandwiches. Notably, the Tuscan flatbread panini filled with mortadella, truffle-butter-milk stracciatella, toasted pistachio and fresh basil.

A tiny inner-city sandwich shop serving big, made-to-order sangas. Truly, these things are huge. The selection features a couple of mainstays alongside inventive, rotating specials. The highlight is The Cure: a three-meat beast of smoked Wagyu pastrami, mortadella and hot salami.

At every one of Bourke Street Bakery’s locations, you’ll find filling daily sandwiches that won’t hurt the wallet. Considering what’s on it, the Wagyu beef number with pickled peppers, rocket and parsley mayo is an absolute steal.

The breakfast rolls at this cool inner west cafe are as photogenic as the locals who line up for them. Ditto the deli hoagie – a soft, pillowy thing stuffed with cold cuts, guindillas, tomato, provolone and crisp iceberg lettuce. Add chippies for an extra $5.

Brickfields' sourdough and seeded ciabattas are perennial sellers on their own – but they’re also put to good use in the bakery's excellent sandwiches. The one with crispy bacon, cavolo nero, manchego, pickled cucumber and garlicky aioli is a mainstay for good reason.