What’s so great about Charlotte’s Cuban sandwiches? The answer is: Everything.
The Cuban, or Cubano, is a thrilling feat of sandwich engineering whose singular goal is to impart maximum pleasure. It’s a sandwich that fires on all thrusters, hitting all the points it was designed to hit.
It’s also a sandwich with a rich history and one that comes in two different styles, both of which are available in the Charlotte area.
“The most important thing about the Cubano,” said Bryan Amaya Garcia at El Puro Cuban Restaurant, “is that every bite contains all the meat and cheese and ingredients that go into it.”
Shai Fargian, corporate executive chef at Calle Sol, spins that take into something more primal.
“It’s not just a pork sandwich,” he told CharlotteFive. “And it’s not just a cheese sandwich. It’s a perfectly made and balanced sandwich that hits on all the crunchy, sweet, salty and acidic notes that our brains are conditioned to crave.”
Over the past handful of months, CharlotteFive videographer Alex Cason and I went on a mission, trying Cubanos around the city — including the ones at El Puro and Calle Sol — to see what exactly makes them so appealing to those who know and love to eat them.
The base ingredients are simple. There’s ham, some kind of seasoned pork, cheese — usually Swiss — pickles and, of course, mustard.
But from there, things diverge, and what’s inside differs based on from where the Cubano comes. Because as much as the Cubano is a sandwich, it is also a celebration of this country’s rich immigrant history.
Where did Cubanos get their start?
The Cubano, according to some food historians and as the name would suggest, originated in Havana. In fact, entire books have been written on the subject. At some point in Cuba, it was referred to as a “mixed sandwich.” Cigar workers at first, and then immigrants fleeing the Cuban revolution, brought the sandwich — or rather, their hunger for it — to Florida.
At El Puro, way down south past LoSo on South Boulevard, that first stop was Miami.
The Miami version of the Cubano almost always sticks to the basics, but what the city brought new to the mix was the sandwich press, giving the Cubano its pressed, crunchy appearance that is familiar to many today.
El Puro’s take on the Miami version comes to the table hidden under a pile of french fries. Dig out from underneath the spuds a sandwich of the epic, hefty variety. The Miami Cubano that Garcia makes is a beautiful mound of meat to behold, with roast pork seasoned well and pickles offering a pop.
Miami vs Tampa Cubanos
But some say the Cubano, or the new American version of it, originated in Tampa. Until the 1950s, Tampa had the largest enclave of Cuban immigrants, and there they lived side by side with Italian immigrants. As a result, the Tampa version of the Cubano has a decidedly Italian touch: salami.
The kitchen at Azucar in Huntersville and Ballantyne, leans into the Tampa version of the history with two different types: the regular Tampa version and a Cubano Especial, which in addition to the salami contains a few slices of chorizo. The chorizo imparts a little heat to the sandwich and a bit more meaty oil.
The versions at Azucar also borrow heavily from the principles of Cubano engineering, said Hector Aguilar, the general manager who has been with the restaurant since its opening four years ago.
“For example,” he said, “the bread comes specially from Artos Bakery in Charlotte, and each loaf is precisely nine inches, exactly the size a Cubano needs to be.”
Instead of shredding the roast pork, as seen in so many versions — including the Cubano at El Puro — at Azucar, the chefs slice it to better achieve the goal of having the perfect ratio of meat, cheese and accoutrements in each and every bite.
The result is hefty but also a paragon of Cubano making, aesthetically precise in its construction.
At Calle Sol, with locations in Plaza Midwood and South Park, Fargian adds a finishing touch of mayo to his Tampa version. What makes the Tampa version here special is the bread, brought in from the century’s old La Segunda Bakery and Cafe in Tampa — the OG Cubano destination. Hot off the press, it incites hunger fury, each bite leaving you more ravenous than the one before.
A new take on Cubanos
There was one version of the Cubano, though, that seemed to embrace the sandwich’s evolution and its rich immigrant history: the Miami-version at the 5th Sin food truck. It’s also one of the area’s most delicious.
The fifth sin, of course, is gluttony, and how could it not be when the sandwiches are this conspicuously out of control — in a good way.
Esurient diners will rave at 5th Sin’s seasoned roast pork; it’s both fatty and piquant, from a languid bath marinating in citrus. It’s piled onto the sandwich so that it oozes out from the sides. The clever twist: cilantro aioli. This is a nod to owner Andre Tomaz’s native Brazil, a surprising schmear to cut through all that meat, and like the Cubano itself, an immigrant’s token of a far away home.
This story was originally published October 29, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
