To say London thrives on trends is to pin the tail on the donkey without a blindfold, yet from fashion to food, a unifying driver has been the middle-class obsession with working-class dining.
From kitchen workwear migrating from labouring sites to mainstream fashion to the soon-to-close Norman’s Cafe gilding the greasy spoon, blue-collar signifiers continue to shape food culture. To that end, the bifana has re-emerged: a traditional Portuguese sandwich of paprika-stained braised pork, meat is piled into a soft white roll and often combined with little more than mustard and cheese, if at all.
Since lockdown, the concept of the sandwich has been subject to infinite takes and iterations, with a lean towards splicing quality and quantity. Equally, an overarching trend toward Iberian influence has seen San Sebastian become almost a place of living myth. Even Eating With Tod knows where it is. Now, the carousel of trends has revolved back around to Portugal with its famous sandwich.
The bifana’s presence in London is nothing new: Little Portugal, a part of Stockwell with a sizable Portuguese community, is home to restaurants such as Estrela, A Toca and Lusitania, and O Cantinho De Portugal, and all have been slinging bifanas for years. They might not be a regular fixture on menus, but they’re not hard to find there.
Farringdon’s Quality Wines began doing their own a couple of years ago and remains a menu staple to this day. It outperforms many I’ve had in Portugal. The roll is billowy yet elastic enough to leave a dental record, slicked with yellow mustard, while the pork is stacked generously and saturated with a braising liquor that tastes like chorizo, distilled — a decent spill of which anoints the whole thing in a finishing move. Although commanding £12 on its own, it’s available with a Super Bock for a tenner between 5pm-6pm every day.
While Portugal will offer bifanas from a very accessible €3.50, like the breakfast sausage at Norman’s London demands a little more zhuzh. Juliet’s Quality Food is the latest contender, boasting a version made with organic Gloucester Old Spot pork braised in bone broth and served with their house-made jindungo oil.
Back in March, Marceline held a Top of the Croques competition where various chefs placed their own spin on the croque monsieur, with Ana Da Costa paying tribute to her Portuguese heritage with a nod to the bifana, thatched with shoestring fries. Another Portuguese restaurant, arguably the first of the new-wave, Bar Douro, also puts bifanas on from time-to-time. They are a solid option and at their last outing cost less than a tenner.
With Nuno Mendes announcing the closure of Lisboeta, which proudly slung bifanas to the previously-deprived area of Fitzrovia, will reopen as Luso and feature a prego — the steak equivalent.
Maybe we’ll see a francesinha boom next?
