PHOTOS: French Food Truck-Turned-Sandwich Chain Opens Chelsea Outpost

CHELSEA, NY - Everything can change in a year. Chef Laurent "Lolo" D’Antonio knows this better than most: his pandemic-era food truck La Sandwicherie has since expanded into three permanent sandwich shops across Manhattan and Brooklyn in just 12 months.

Helmed by D'Antonio and his former employee Massire Diawara, La Sandwicherie's latest brick-and-mortar location debuted in Chelsea last month at 239 W 15th St. featuring a classic menu spread of French sandwiches and sweet crepes, plus what the owners call the "best" Italian coffee in the world.

Grab-and-go French grocery store items are also available at the checkout counter: chestnut spread, Belin Monaco crackers and Champomy sparkling apple juice are just some options.

The Chelsea store arrives just a year after La Sandicherie’s first permanent location opened in Greenpoint. Before that, D’Antonio and Diawara ran La Sandicherie out of a food truck in Brooklyn’s McCarren Park in 2020 after D’Antonio’s Williamsburg restaurant Pâté et Tradition — which he operated for 16 years since first arriving to New York in 2008 — closed earlier that year.

It didn't take long for one customer-turned-investor, Daron Yemini, to urge the food truck owners to take the business to Greenpoint’s former hair salon The Paint Box. The Driggs Avenue location opened in September 2022 to fanfare.

While shopping for La Sandwicherie's second location in the Upper East Side just a few months after the first store's opeing, an UES landlord also offered up a deal on a Chelsea tenancy, D'Antonio said. The result: two new sandwich shops opening just weeks apart on opposite ends of Manhattan.

But 2023 wasn't all smooth sailing for the trio, the chef told Patch.

One of D'Antonio's biggest challenges in opening the locations was converting the small, dark and semi-underground sites into bright and inviting spaces for New Yorkers to enjoy a coffee or sandwich.

"I'm the chef but I'm also the designer, and I was designing two places at the same time," D'Antonio told Patch. "It was a big challenge for me."

"It's very, very small," he said of the Chelsea space. "It was dark. It was a huge change for me to make something beautiful, clear and sexy ... in the end, I'm so happy with this place. I'm so proud, and people love it."

Menu offerings at the Chelsea location are similar to those at D’Antonio and Diawara’s other locations, where you'll find "Le Parisien," with French ham, brie cheese, tomatoes, arugula and mayo, and a prosciutto and truffle burrata; "Le Thon," with tuna, aioli sauce, cucumber, tomatoes and red onion; and a duck rillette pate complimented with cornichons, arugula and mayo. You can view a full menu here.

New additions include the smoked duck and the smoked salmon with cream cheese, a French twist on New York's famous lox and cream cheese bagels.

The bright, inviting decor of La Sandwicherie paired with distinctly French ingredients makes the brand stand out from other sandwich shops, D'Antonio told Patch, noting the house-made vinaigrette and herb-infused goat cheese as just some examples of the small details he takes into account while crafting his plates.

"When a customer eats a sandwich here, they're like 'wow, I've never eaten a sandwich like that in New York,'" D'Antonio said. "Why? Because the baguette bread is French ... if you miss the bread in the sandwich — you can put the best cheese and the best ham — but it'll be no good.

The way I mix my ingredients, it's a good balance ... and I don't know anywhere else [in New York] that serves smoked duck."

La Sandwicherie of Chelsea is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. For directions and more information, click here.