Lucky Pickle

If there’s one piece of advice we can impart to you today it’s to get to Lucky Pickle – Arash Katrak and Anna Berry’s sandwich shop specialising in banh mi-ish/hogie-ish/sub-ish baguettes – very bloody early. Like, maybe you should start thinking about it while you’re eating your morning granola. Such is the popularity of this dinky little shopfront offering a five-strong selection of $10 sambos. They do what they do, and when it’s gone, it’s gone.

Like we said, you’ll want to get in at the sparrow’s for the pork belly, stuffed inside a long golden chewy roll (they nearly all come on the same style roll, BTW) spread with duck-liver paté and punked up with pickled carrot and daikon, cucumber, coriander, mayonnaise and chilli sauce. Same goes for crisp strips of chicken katsu with red cabbage, mayonnaise and tonkatsu sauce (think of it as Japanese Worcestershire).

For us, the chicken is a little dry. Go for the juicy squish-fest of mortadella toasted with smoked mozzarella, green olives and cashew and almond nut pesto instead. Veggos should dive straight for the soft and slightly musky goat’s cheese with slices of fresh pear, chopped fresh walnuts, dressed salad – and, our favourite – surprise peas!

Lucky Pickle is pretty much just a shopfront, with a tiny table in the corner that could theoretically seat two if the little room wasn’t quite so filled with folks lining up for lunch. Outside, half of Surry Hills has rolled up on their bikes, or is standing around smoking roll-your-owns, not so much eating as mooching.

It’s a really big scene for such a little sandwich shop. And do you know what? It’s nice.