Focaccia is a generous bread — oily, salty, soft — and it rewards fillings that respect that. Pile on too much and it becomes a wet brick. Fill it with something bland and the bread does all the work. The best focaccia sandwiches are short lists of good things in the right proportion.
Here is how we think about it when we build the six for Focaccia Kenya each month.
Four things every filling needs
Fat. Focaccia is already rich, so the fat in the filling should be a different kind: fresh cheese, a creamy spread, a soft cured meat. Mozzarella, burrata, labneh, stracciatella, ricotta. These melt into the bread rather than sitting on top of it.
Acid. This is the one people forget. Something sharp cuts through the oil and wakes everything up: pickles, a mustard, a squeeze of lemon, a hot honey, vinegared vegetables, tomato. Without acid, a focaccia sandwich tastes heavy by the third bite.
Crunch or bite. The bread is soft inside, so the filling needs texture. Rocket, crisp lettuce, a crumbed chicken fillet, toasted nuts, raw zucchini ribbons.
Restraint. Three or four components, not eight. Every ingredient should be identifiable in the bite.
Fillings that always work
- Mozzarella, tomato, basil. The caprese. Works because the tomato brings the acid and the basil the aroma. Season the tomato — it needs salt.
- Mortadella and pistachio. Bologna’s own sandwich. The mortadella is soft and fatty, the pistachio is crunchy, and if you add a little burrata or stracciatella it becomes something people talk about.
- Pastrami, melted cheese, pickles, mustard. The deli classic moves onto focaccia without complaint. The pickles and mustard are doing the real work.
- Grilled halloumi with something sweet and something sharp. Halloumi is salty and squeaky; it needs honey (ideally hot honey) and a soft acid like labneh or yoghurt. Zucchini or roasted peppers add body.
- Chicken with pesto. Grilled or roasted chicken, a good pesto, mozzarella, rocket. Simple, and the pesto brings both fat and herb.
- Crumbed chicken with a spicy mayo. Crunch from the panko, heat and acid from the sriracha aïoli, cool from slaw or pickles. This is the one that sells to people who say they don’t like sandwiches.
- Prosciutto, rocket, parmesan, lemon. Four ingredients. Perfect.
Fillings that fight the bread
- Anything very wet. Tuna mayo, egg mayo, saucy pulled meats. They soak through the crumb and the base goes soft.
- Thick, dry proteins. A slab of grilled chicken breast with nothing else. The bread is softer than the filling and the whole thing falls apart.
- Too many leaves. Focaccia is not a salad box. A handful of rocket is right; a fistful of mixed leaves is wrong.
- Sweet breads’ worst enemy: sugar. Sweet chutneys and jams are fine in a corner, but a focaccia is not the place for a sweet sandwich. Save the honey for a hot honey, where acid and chilli keep it honest.
- Cheese that doesn’t melt. Hard aged cheeses in slabs. Grate them, or choose a fresh cheese.
Building it properly
Split the focaccia horizontally with a serrated knife. Put the fresh cheese or spread on the bottom half, so it seals the crumb against anything wet. Meat next, then the acid element, then the leaves on top so they stay crisp. Close it and press down gently. Cut on the diagonal if you must; we don’t.
If you are eating it later, keep the leaves and anything very wet separate until you do. Everything else — cheese, cured meat, pickles — is better after an hour pressed together in the bread.
What to drink with it
Because the kitchen sits inside The Wine Shop, this question comes up more than it would at most sandwich counters.
- With the mortadella and burrata: a dry Lambrusco or a chilled, light red. Sparkling and fat are made for each other.
- With the halloumi and hot honey: an off-dry white — a Riesling, or a Chenin with a little sweetness — to match the honey and tame the chilli.
- With chicken pesto or chicken parm: a Sauvignon Blanc or an Italian white like Vermentino or Pinot Grigio. Herb against herb.
- With pastrami and pickles: a Pinot Noir, or a cold lager, honestly.
- With crispy chicken and sriracha: Prosecco. The bubbles scrub the heat and the fat.
This month’s six
The Focaccia Kenya menu is six sandwiches on one rosemary focaccia, and it changes on the first of every month. Order on WhatsApp by 2pm to collect or have it delivered the same day, or until 8pm for tomorrow. If you’d rather sit down with a glass, reserve a table at the wine bar in Loresho.