Artisan Sandwich Deli in Stroud Green: Max's Walk-In Lunch

Max's Sandwich Shop does not take reservations, and it shuts on Mondays and Tuesdays. The rest of the week this artisan sandwich deli at 19 Crouch Hill, London N4 4AP, serves lunch and dinner from a short handwritten menu. Its best-known order, the Ham, Egg 'n' Chips, puts slow-cooked ham hock, piccalilli, a fried egg, shoestring fries and malt vinegar mayo between two slices, and it costs £15.95 on the current card.

Max Halley opened the shop in November 2014, and within a year it had won Best Cheap Eats at the Observer Food Monthly Awards, as Islington Now reported in October 2015. Halley told that paper the place was "a serious restaurant masquerading as a sandwich shop," and that line still explains the place: you sit down at a table to eat food most of London buys in a paper bag and finishes on a bench.

Halley has since become the sandwich man of British television. His own site lists him as the resident sandwich and condiment expert on Channel 4's Sunday Brunch, and his first cookbook, Max's Sandwich Book, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. None of that has turned the shop into a chain. There is one branch, on a residential slope between Stroud Green and Crouch End, and the footer of its website still reads est. 2014.

The homepage spells the house theory out in six words: hot, cold, sweet, sour, crunchy, soft. Every sandwich on the board is supposed to hit all of them at once, which is why the Ham, Egg 'n' Chips has chips inside it and why a sharp mustard pickle sits against the runny yolk. The balance matters more than the size, and the fillings are layered so that something hot always meets something cold in the same bite.

The card changes, and the names are half the fun. On the current handwritten menu photographed on the shop's site, The Korean Gangster pairs soy and vinegar braised goat with kimchi-kraut for £16.50, while This Is How We Spring Roll costs £15.50. Et Tu, Brute? Murdering the Caesar is a riff on the salad, listed at £15.95. Halley's own bio quotes him saying gravy mayonnaise is the one thing he will go to his grave extremely proud of.

Order the Ham, Egg 'n' Chips. Max's sandwiches have appeared on the covers of Esquire and Time Out, according to the shop, and the version on the board today keeps the same idea of a British caff breakfast collapsed into bread. Add the deep-fried jalapeño mac 'n' cheese ball, which is £2.50 and the cheapest thing on the menu, and share a bowl of the crushed fried potatoes with Pig Max sauce if there are two of you.

Skip pudding unless you are still hungry after the sandwich, which most people are not. At £7 it is a fair price, but these sandwiches are built to be a full meal, not a snack, and the chips inside already do the job of a side. Spend the money on a second sandwich to split instead, so you can taste two of the board's ideas side by side.

Because there are no reservations, the trick is timing. Lunch runs from 12pm on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, so arriving a few minutes after the door opens beats the office crowd and the weekend families. Saturday lunch starts earlier, at 11am, and Sunday is a single long service from 11am to 6pm, which makes mid-afternoon Sunday the calmest slot of the week.

Groups pay a little more: the menu notes an optional 12.5% service charge on tables of two or more. Solo diners avoid it and also slip into gaps faster. If the room is full and the wait looks long, walk ten minutes down to Stroud Green Road, where the high street's run of cafes gives you a fallback lunch without retracing your steps.

The shop publishes split hours on its contact page. Wednesday to Friday it serves from 12pm to 3pm and again from 6pm to 11pm. Saturday runs 11am to 3:30pm and 5pm to 11pm. Sunday runs straight through from 11am to 6pm, and Monday and Tuesday are closed.

Plan around the holidays, because the shop closes for three weeks at Christmas, for two weeks every August, and for the Saturday and Sunday of the Easter weekend. On Mondays and Tuesdays, when it would otherwise be dark, the room is available for private hire, and the team also caters events. Their site jokes about sending 600 sandwiches "for something weird."

Max's sits on a steep residential road rather than a high street, so the walk is half the outing. Head uphill and you reach Crouch Hill Overground station and, beyond it, the independent shops and pubs of Crouch End. Head downhill and Stroud Green Road leads toward Finsbury Park, the Victorian park with its boating lake and the busy interchange station on its eastern edge.

For a longer stroll after lunch, pick up the Parkland Walk, the old railway line turned nature trail that runs between Finsbury Park and Highgate. It is shaded, flat and quiet, a good way to work off fries and fried egg before the Overground home. On a Sunday the loop from the shop to the trail and back to the station fills an easy afternoon.

Max's Sandwich Shop, 19 Crouch Hill, London N4 4AP. Open Wednesday to Sunday, closed Monday and Tuesday, with breaks between lunch and dinner on every day except Sunday. Walk-in only. The menu is a short handwritten board and prices on it include the Ham, Egg 'n' Chips at £15.95.

Nearest rail is Crouch Hill on the Overground, with Finsbury Park the closest Tube interchange. The shop posts updates and specials on Instagram at @lunchluncheon. Ask Karpo APP to line up a Sunday afternoon around Crouch End, or to find another North London sandwich stop if you land on a Monday when the shutters are down.