Larry’s Sandwiches & Sides
True sandwich art in downtown Dartmouth
BY LINDSAY WICKSTROM
PHOTOS MICHELLE DOUCETTE
The submarine sandwich, which peaked in popularity in the 1970s or 1980s, seems to be making a comeback. With the cost of living increasing and wages stagnating, people are looking for affordable, belly-filling comfort foods. It may come as a surprise that one of these new contenders is an offshoot of Dear Friend, Dartmouth’s trendy cocktail bar.
The folks at Dear Friend wanted to open for lunch during the summer to get more use of their patio. Chef Jason McKenzie decided to pilot a sandwich bar.
“I don’t think that people want to go into a cocktail bar for lunch necessarily, so Larry’s was an idea I had to like, fill that lunch niche at Dear Friend. So, we did a little pop-up on the patio last summer.”
McKenzie is a graduate of PEI’s Holland College and worked at high-end restaurants in Toronto, like Canis (which made international lists and Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants before shutting down during Covid).
“We shut down for Covid and never reopened. And that’s when I realized I only lived in Toronto for work, and I wanted to try and find a better life for myself. So my partner and I came out here and I helped open the restaurants for Freehand Hospitality” (Drift, Café Lunette, Bar Sophia).
However, McKenzie didn’t love working for large restaurant groups and wanted to find a gig with a small independent business. He wanted more freedom to do as he pleased.
“When I started at Dear Friend we just had like, an induction burner and toaster oven in the kitchen, and they were just doing oysters and olives and things on bread.”
In his last three years at Dear Friend, McKenzie has implemented a creative, seasonal small plates menu rotating every 4-6 weeks.
Last summer’s sandwich pop-up was deemed successful enough to become a permanent fixture. The space beside Dear Friend (formerly a bike shop) became available last fall, and the work began: designing, building, and setting up the plumbing. Larry’s opened in May, with a modest 8-9 seats, and is named after McKenzie’s cat.
Submarine sandwiches seem pedestrian compared to his work at Dear Friend, but McKenzie wanted to provide accessible lunch fare to the neighbourhood. These sandwiches are also what you could call “Chef Food”—something McKenzie (and other chefs) might like to eat between prep and service when time is scarce.
“I heard a long time ago, David Chang talking about how all the cooks who grow up doing greasy diner stuff want to be fine dining chefs, and all the fine dining chefs rebel and want to do greasy diners,” explains McKenzie. “And I didn’t realize how true it was until I got older and I was like, oh, that’s me.”
“I’ve only ever worked in fine dining and I wanted to do something that was accessible to everyone and make something that people who don’t give a shit about food can come and enjoy, and still do it with the integrity and quality that I’ve always put into fine dining restaurants. If you don’t know why it’s good while you’re eating it, that’s fine. And the people who like that attention to detail can still come in and notice those touches.”
McKenzie sources his ground meat and ham from Vessel Meats, his veggies from Green Garden Farms and Abundant Acres, and his bread from Al-Arz Bakery (a Middle-Eastern bakery known for pita bread). These buns are pillowy and dense, providing that “gas station sub” experience rather than a crispy baguette. (Gluten-free buns are available on request.)
All of the pickles and sauces are house-made, but McKenzie tries to strike a balance between the elevated and the familiar.
The most popular sub is the turkey club, which features thinly sliced smoked turkey, avocado mayo, Brothers’ bacon, provolone cheese, and pico de gallo. McKenzie chose pico instead of sliced tomato for functional reasons:
“I hate when you’re eating a sandwich, and you get a slice of tomato that pulls everything out. So we dice almost all of the toppings that go onto the sandwiches. So every bite is even and every bite is perfect.”
The turkey club is the best seller, perhaps because it is the most familiar. Not everyone is on a first-name basis with the fancy bologna that is mortadella, so McKenzie has a picture of the mortadella sub on the wall to nudge people towards this cold cut delight.
“Mortadella is the classiest junk food you can get,” says McKenzie. It was the perfect canvas for all those things we were excited to make, like the ranch, the mustard, the garden pickles.”
The accompanying ranch sauce is a mix of house mayo, hung yogurt (liquid is removed from yogurt, producing a consistency similar to Levantine staple labneh), and herbs and seasonings. McKenzie’s mustard is a slightly grainy yellow mustard that he prepares from Canadian mustard seeds.
Freshly shredded lettuce and creamy provolone cheese help with bulk and texture, and combined with the house-made condiments, this is everything I want in a mortadella sub.
I also tried the meatball sub, which is toasted with meatballs in tomato sauce, provolone, and parmesan, then finished with pickled banana peppers and fresh basil.
The aromatics hit me before I take my first salivating bite. If I closed my eyes, I’d expect to open them in a New York bodega.
My final sample is McKenzie’s favourite sub, the BB Ham (brown butter ham), inspired by a signature ham dish at Vin Papillon in Montreal: a plate of ham covered in brown butter and Comté cheese.
Vessel Meats’ ham meets brown butter mayonnaise (milk powder cooked into brown butter and blended into the house mayo), aged PEI cheddar, garlic dill pickles, and a celeriac remoulade (which is a French recipe of raw celery root slaw in a mustard remoulade sauce). Wow. The combination of brown butter mayo, ham, mustard seed and celery root is an entirely new flavour experience that I don’t want to end. Ever. It is an absolute delight.
Larry’s also offers a Kimchi Tuna sandwich on pullman loaf bread (from the Halifax Bread Company), with confit albacore tuna (from Afishionado), kimchi mayo, chopped kimchi, pickled red onions, cucumber, and bibb lettuce. Right smack in the middle of the sandwich is a silky ramen egg. It is a show-stopper on my Instagram feed and will be the next thing I try.
Other offerings are the mushroom melt sub, the falafel burger, and the breakfast bun. The latter two sandwiches come on Martin’s potato buns, which are not vegan; however, McKenzie is working with Bramble Café to get a properly sized vegan bun (befitting a falafel burger).
“The breakfast bun is the one I eat the most of,” says McKenzie. It is an egg patty with provolone, bacon, Branston pickle, brown butter mayo, and lettuce mix. McKenzie makes the Branston pickle (a dark brown, sweet and sour spread) with rutabaga, ginger, sherry vinegar and maple. “The fartier the vegetable, the better,” laughs McKenzie.
All subs and sandwiches are available as a whole or half sandwich combo, including chips & dip and a pop. Other sides include pasta salad and tahini Caesar salad.
Larry’s is now licensed, offering Barkeep Cocktails, local and Canadian craft beers, and a selection of wine (with plans to add some vermouths and amaro). There is also a wide variety of non-alcoholic beverages and a pantry of chips and other grocery items. McKenzie plans to expand this into a “grab & go” section, where his ranch and house-made dips will be for sale.
“Our goal is really to build out that (grab-and-go) section too. I want to be a place where you can like, come and grab some stuff to make dinner or, if you’re having a movie night or whatever, come grab a bag of chips and some chip dip.”
He is also buying and reselling hard-to-find products from Canadian producers (mostly from Montreal).
“It’s all stuff that I want to have for home, and this was my way of like, 1) getting it for myself and 2) sharing it with people.”
For example, he carries some Matty Matheson products as well as Rabbit Hole Coffee, a micro-roastery from Montreal, because that is the coffee he wants to drink every day.
Larry’s is on its way to becoming a Dartmouth community staple for quick and convenient quality fare. It is hard to strike that balance between making things from scratch, working with local farmers, and having chef techniques and standards, without appearing inaccessible or pretentious. While we all come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives, the appreciation for a good sandwich is a shared experience we can all enjoy.
Larry’s Sandwiches & Sides
63 Portland Street, Dartmouth
SANDWICH SHOP $$ L/D
order.toasttab.com/online/larrys
