An Unassuming East Village Sandwich Shop Gets a Star in the Times

Times critic Pete Wells awards one star to Foxface this week, a casual window-service East Village restaurant that serves “impressive” stew-filled sandwiches.

Foxface, which is run by an Israeli couple that used to operate a pop-up restaurant in Tokyo, excels in meaty stews stuffed between bread, Wells writes. He highlights several concoctions such as a “soft” tripe sandwich, in which the meat is simmered with “fiery and malleable” Calabrian sausage known as ’nduja, and a “tart” pork option stuffed with cilantro stems and pickled onions.

But Wells warns diners that there’s no guarantee that these sandwiches will be found at the restaurant, located at 80 St. Mark’s Pl., as the menu is printed daily and changes frequently. There is, however, one particular sandwich that’s always on tap:

The Smoking Fox is sold every day. It is filled with smoked pork rib the color of a dry rosé, separated from the bones and covered with coleslaw, pickles and a few splashes of habanero-orange vinegar. Your mind, of course, goes either to Memphis or to the McRib, and neither is exactly wrong, but the meat is of a superior grade and is smoked with the attention to timing and nuance that characterizes Foxface’s cooking. It’s a great sandwich.

The critic goes on to appreciate the restaurant’s “plain cooking,” especially in today’s Instagram-era in which plain-looking brown stews have gone out of style. One star.

• Elk? Hare? Camel? All That and More in Sandwiches, at Foxface [NYT]