The origin of the hamburger is in dispute: perhaps grilled ground beef in a bun was first served stateside by Fletcher Davis in his Texas diner — or maybe, as the name implies, it was first served in Hamburg, Germany.
The origin of the patty melt, however, is somewhat better documented, with most sources agreeing that the hamburger patty (or patties) with cheese, served in rye bread slices rather than a bun, first appeared on menus in 1940s California at Tiny Naylor’s eponymous restaurants.
Having bread slices stand in for a bun may seem a little, um, low-rent, but at Submarine Tender, the bread used is a good rye, griddled crisp, with caraway seeds, for slight spiciness. The hamburger bun, on the other hand, serves the strictly functional role of enabling you to hold the hamburger while you eat it, but unless it’s a truly good bun (a rarity) the usually squishy white bread adds next to nothing to the flavor. The delicious patty melt at Submarine Tender has so much flavor, it doesn’t need mustard, ketchup, relish, whatever: it’s good straight-up, with only a dollop of griddled onions, which adds a slightly sweet note to the sandwich.
Submarine Tender’s patty melt uses two thin patties with cheese on both the top and bottom bread slices.
The regular Submarine Tender sub sandwich is a decent bite, but compared with the patty melt, it’s clearly an also-ran. The ingredients — “assorted cold cuts,” a slice of cool cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. — were fine, but the flavors did not merge in any significant way.
The patty melt is warm, and a warm sandwich is usually better than a cold sandwich, the flavors are more discernible.
As reported in a 2020 issue of Scientific American: “Our sense of taste is more sensitive to warm food than to cold food.” No argument there.
Melted cheese is almost always better than un-melted cheese. I never buy American cheese (rubbery, one-dimensional), but I concur with Ralph Fiennes, the monomaniacal chef in “The Menu,” who declared, “American cheese is the best cheese for a cheeseburger because it melts without splitting.” True, true …
And yet … apparently Swiss cheese was traditionally the favored fromage in a patty melt. As Sam Sifton wrote in the New York Times, “As great dinner sandwiches go, it is hard to beat the patty melt: ground beef, Swiss cheese and caramelized onions griddled on rye bread until they become a crisp, oozing package of salty-sweet delight.”
Such praise was echoed by Ed Levin in Serious Eats, who wrote that patty melts “are one of the truly great underappreciated sandwich creations of all time. No one thinks about them. They haven’t gotten their due!”
If you haven’t already, now’s the time to begin giving patty melts their due. You can start at Submarine Tender, but you’ll also find them on the menus at Cozy Corner, George’s Restaurant, and other comfy, unpretentious local spots.
