Gatsby Sandwich

The Gatsby is a long white roll split lengthways, filled with a hot filling and then packed with hot chips, dressed with a sharp sauce, and cut into portions to be shared. The standard account credits Rashaad Pandy, a fish and chip shop owner in Athlone, who in 1976 improvised a meal from leftovers for a group of workers and named it after a film he had seen; the name stuck and the sandwich spread across Cape Town. Fillings are masala steak, polony, calamari, chicken or vienna sausage, and the sauce - usually a chilli or peri-peri - is what makes or breaks it. A full Gatsby is ordinarily cut into four and fed to four people; ordering one for yourself is a misjudgement most visitors make once. It belongs to the Cape Flats and the versions sold in the city centre are generally pale copies.

What you actually see

• A shared sandwich - a full roll cut into four, meant for a group.
• Chips inside - hot chips packed in with the filling, not served alongside.
• The 1976 origin - improvised in an Athlone fish and chip shop.
• The sauce - chilli or peri-peri, and the thing that decides quality.

When to go

All year. An hour. Evening, when the takeaways are busiest and freshest.

Honest expectations

A full Gatsby feeds four people - do not order one alone. The best are on the Cape Flats, and going there is easier with a local. City-centre versions are usually inferior. It is heavy, greasy food by design.

Nearby

Athlone and the Cape Flats takeaways; the city centre is north-west.