The beauty of brick & tin

In addition to the titular building materials, brick & tin is full of wood and air and earth. Pews flank a few of the reclaimed-wood tables in the new downtown sandwich shop, and the rest are surrounded by spacious chairs. Sunlight floods more than half of the long dining room, streaming in through the massive storefront windows. Where the rays don’t reach, illumination comes from industrial-looking fixtures at the ends of dramatic ceiling fans. The “earth” I mentioned is what the sandwiches are served on — varicolored clay plates made and glazed by hand in Italy. Considering the chic decor and dinnerware, it’s the last place you’d expect to find bologna on the menu.

And yet the “bologna” is one of the nine panini on offer: Pretty pink mortadella is piled on toasted white bread, then slathered with ricotta and whole-grain mustard. The taste is so robust and rich, you forget it’s merely a sandwich in your hands.

In two visits this week, we’ve also tried three other panini: the Cuban (slow-roasted pork shoulder, smoky mountain country ham, pickled pepper relish, and Gruyere); the New Orleans (a variation on the Muffaletta, made with salami, capicola, mortadella, provolone, and olives) and the Coosa Valley (scrambled farm eggs, sliced avocado, and bacon). The sandwiches are served sliced in two, making the halves easy to trade, and each one comes with a choice of soup, salad, or a seasonal side. The latter, in summer, is either deviled eggs with shaved country ham or a field pea, sweet corn and cucumber salad. The only soup I’ve sampled so far was the roasted chicken, a light, bright broth embellished with firm summer vegetables and shredded crepes.

The crew is still getting its bearings. Service was slow, sides dishes were transposed, and on our first visit, the lack of signage made it tough to figure out whether we were supposed to seat ourselves or order at the bar. But such hiccups are easily forgiven in an eatery’s earliest days. Much like one member of the trio that runs the nearby Trattoria Centrale, brick & tin proprietor Mauricio Papapietro (shown at right) learned his way around a kitchen working for Birmingham superchef Frank Stitt. And by applying his extensive experience to something as simple as the sandwich, Papapietro may prove anew that what makes fine dining isn’t the price point so much as the food.

brick & tin is located at 214 20th St. North. Hours are Mon-Fri 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. this week; next week the restaurant will begin staying open until 7 p.m. For more information, call (204) 297-8636 or visit www.brickandtin.com.


P.S. “Panini” is a plural noun. The singular is panino, which is Italian for “little bread roll.”