Venue: Make Mine, Dean StreetFood: Ciabatta (various)
Cost: £4.75
Rating: 75%
A staple of the Soho sandwich brigade circuit, Make Mine blends the care of a hand-produced sandwich with a production line of near Germanic efficiency.
To enter Make Mine for the first time is to confront a menu of bewildering proportions. Ciabatta/foccacia and sandwiches with 14 varied fillings. A wrap/salad menu boasting 14 more (with minimal crossover). Or if by some miracle your choice is not covered, the ability to construct your own is on offer!
Just as well then that Make Mine possesses a comically small serving area to place your order, allowing you a moment to gather your thoughts as you inch towards the counter…
Once you reach the front of the queue I wholeheartedly endorse the ciabatta option, with the Soho Club, Schnitzel or Cajun fillings, which all feature chicken in some guise. If you don’t like chicken in your sandwich, then feel free to ignore this recommendation.
Always raising a smile are the ‘New’ tags alongside fillings which have been offered for well over 15 months. Once a clever marketing ploy…it must now be time for a new menu board!
Service is pretty standard, the conveyor belt style fostering an impersonal culture and lack of soul by its very nature. Orders are taken with minimum fuss, taking your name for that ‘personal’ touch (more to follow on that) and passed along to the sandwich ‘creators’ behind the counters.
Upon completion, your sandwich is wrapped and your name summoned. It appears however, that half of Make Mine’s customers share my name, cue much confusion and on two occasions, a wrong sandwich picked up!
Nevertheless, hefty fillings emerge within a toasted ciabatta and the end product is consistently good. The place is a nightmare around 1pm as the entirety of Soho drops by, but if you can get past a cluttered shop, Make Mine does exactly what it sets out to do…a good sandwich. If you wanted originality, you wouldn’t be buying a sandwich.
The chief downside is price. £4.75 is a significant mark up on other sandwich shops, but probably worth it to move beyond the offerings of Eat and Pret. Recently adding a breakfast menu, which I will be sure to report on, Make Mine is a strong and solid lunchtime option without setting the culinary world alight.
Taste 8
Portion size 9
Service 6
Speed 7
Originality 6
Choice 10
Workability 8
Office response 7
Value for money 6
Brand 8
Overall: 75%
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