With Italian, Greek and Australian influences, Suburbia Deli’s sandwiches are “a perfect Melbourne story” between two slices of bread. And for Besha Rodell, they also take her straight back to New York’s delis.

We are living in a golden age of sandwiches here in Melbourne, a boom that shows no signs of slowing. But where, among all of this focaccia and Turkish bread, are the New York deli sandwiches? We have New York pizza and New York bagels, so why not the sandwiches?

I’m not talking about the huge Reubens you get at Katz’s and other Jewish delis. I’m talking about the more workaday hoagie, hero and grinder, bought from a deli (or bodega, depending on the neighbourhood and, honestly, the ethnicity of the proprietor).

My love affair with these sandwiches began during my first week of grade 12 when I, at a new high school in Tarrytown outside of New York City, was taken to the North Tarrytown Deli by a girl named Jackie.…