Masterpiece Deli’s chefs: maestros of the sandwich

By Tucker Shaw | The Denver Post

April 20, 2009 at 3:32 p.m.

It’s a midday sonata familiar to every downtown cubicle-rat, like me:

Introduction: The clock strikes 12:30. “I’m hungry,” you say.

Exposition: “Want to grab some lunch? Where should we go?” your co-worker asks.

Development: “I dunno,” you shrug. “Wherever.”

Recapitulation: “Oh, forget it,” your coworker says. “I’m not that hungry anyway.”

Coda: The microwave dings, another Hot Pocket emerges.

It’s an unhappy dirge, signaling the beginning of the end of good intentions for the day.

Happily, the song doesn’t have to remain the same any longer, thanks to the sandwich savants behind Masterpiece Deli, located on the windward side of the Highland pedestrian bridge in a small, cheery corner unit at Central and 16th streets.

Here, you’ll find a crispy-soft toasted roll stuffed with house-brined and roasted pork, ham, cheese, pickles, mustard and garlic aioli — a sharply soothing Cubano sandwich.

You’ll find a rich, yeasty pair of rye bread slices stacked with savory, salty corned beef, tangy kraut and creamy-sharp Thousand Island dressing.

You’ll find decadent, braised brisket dressed in a creamy taleggio fonduta alongside deeply caramelized onions firmly contained in a whisper-light, and warm, baguette.

Masterpiece Deli’s stock in trade is this: common sandwiches built with uncommon skill and ingredients. Including bread: Every slice I’ve had at Masterpiece Deli has been superior.

No tuna salad here—M.D.’s version is a seared chunk of sashimi-grade tuna restrainedly swathed in wasabi- kissed mayonnaise and piled with a sweet Napa cabbage slaw.

No bottom-shelf Italian hero here either— M.D.’s is loaded with prosciutto, mortadella, capicolla and so on from Biellese — the fabled salumeria on New York’s Eighth Avenue, an address that has kept it, for nearly 100 years, safely secluded from the both the mayhem of the meatpacking district and the fabled Deli Wars of Ninth Avenue (see Manganaro Bros).

One thing you won’t find at Masterpiece Deli: Great egg salad. M.D.’s, stirred together with capers and (oy) truffle oil, is too refined by a measure.

Another thing you won’t find: great soup. The soups here (miso and of-the-day) are second-thoughts. Save your soup-cents for another pot. (And here’s a nitpick: The menu needs a spell check.)

Lunch at Masterpiece Deli does have its overhead. For one thing, it takes a shuttle ride and a 10-minute walk across Confluence Park and two pedestrian bridges to get there. But this is Colorado, where we’re not afraid to earn our lunch with a vigorous midday stroll.

What’s more, these aren’t bargain- basement sandwiches. You’ll pay 8 bucks for a roasted veggie sandwich, and that’s at the low end. And this isn’t fast food. Your sandwich will take a few minutes. But lunch at Masterpiece Deli lunch isn’t a prefab, drive-thru affair; these are time-out meals, created carefully and artfully by cooks who know from ingredients and technique and hospitality.

Masterpiece Deli is Denver’s best new sandwich shop, and if they continue apace, it will be Denver’s best sandwich shop, period.

Get in line.

End note to the universe re: truffle oil

Fine. You win. I throw up my hands in defeat. I get it. The fact that a customer can add a drizzle of truffle oil to any sandwich at Masterpiece Deli for 2 extra dollars is the final sign that my battle against this wicked, noisome elixir that tastes nothing like truffles is over. I lose. The stuff is now as ubiquitous, and abused, as balsamic vinegar. But as I go down in defeat, I’ll cry once more, muffled by a tidal surge of truffle oil: “Truffles, always! Truffle oil, never!”

Tucker Shaw: dining@denverpost.com