Whatever your tastes, you don’t have to travel far in Melbourne to find a good sanga.

Whether it’s the New York deli-channelling Hector’s, the Indonesian stylings of Warkop, the banh mi at Ca Com or countless other hot takes on the theme, a satisfying meal slapped between two slices of bread is available across the city and well into the ’burbs.

But it took a chef dripping in frequent-flyer points to spy a rare gap in Melbourne’s sandwich multiverse. Charlie Carrington of Atlas Dining – the globe-trotting Prahran restaurant that changes its geographical focus every three months – has turned his love affair with the Cubano sandwiches of Miami into a fuss-free diner with a Latin American lean.

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A short walk from the Atlas mothership, Little Havana – named after the Cuban diaspora’s adopted Miami ’hood) – is dishing up some solid daytime goods.

The menu is short and sharp. Of the five sandwiches, you’ll definitely want to try the marquee classic Cuban. It’s a duo meat situation, with multiple layers of thinly sliced roasted pork and smoked ham co-mingling their juicy flavour profiles, joined by mustard and pickles and a mild, slightly sweet Swiss cheese.

The white crusty bread in which they’re swaddled is an important part of the Cubano equation. Bland when considered alone, it takes flight in the sandwich press, which mingles flavours and textures into one almighty love-in that’s crisp on the outside and light and saucy within, with a layer of lardy glaze adding extra flavour oomph. You can add a gloopy croquette, an explosion of ham-flecked bechamel, into the Cuban, or just get a side of the fantastically addictive little lobes.

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The roast beef Cubano packs brisket and pastrami, plus a harissa-adjacent, capsicum- based mojo rojo sauce then loads up with matchstick French fries (the chip-packet version) in a shameless appeal to anyone who can’t get enough salty crunch into their lives.

Vegetarians can it to the mushroom version. In a friendly move, free add-ons include sweet pickles, grilled onions and jalapenos. Little Havana might be all about fast food, but the credentials are sound. It cures its own ham and roasts its own beef and keeps the philosophy rolling to the add-on sauces such as coriander aioli and mojo verde.

But if you’re starting to loathe your food choices (not saying you should, mind you…) three salads await to appease dietitians, including a chicken Caesar with its poached chicken breast, lettuce and boiled egg combo sparked up with the tangy mojo onions.

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The space, you ask? It’s like a retro Miami has materialised on High St, with its easy-care diner stylings tarted up with a black and white checkerboard floor, green tiles and neon pink lights. You order at the counter and wait for your name to be called, and if you want a drink it’ll have to be coffee (the brew is true, thanks to beans from Undercover Roaters) or a softie until a liquor licence comes through.

But for any sandwich connoisseur, Little Havana’s taste of the new is reason enough to get out the culinary passport.

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