I’ll order a jambon-beurre, the iconic French sandwich of ham and butter on a baguette, any time I see it on a menu, any time of day or night. With its staid and tidily contained ingredients, it’s not a sexy sandwich, but it is a seductive one, all subtlety and salinity, the slick density of butter and the yielding pinkness of ham. Simplicity is a form of exposure: when there are only a few elements, there’s nothing for any of them to hide behind, and so the jambon-beurre ascends (or, at times, fails) in the margins, based on the thinness of the slice of ham, the precise crispiness of the baguette’s crust, the texture of the butter or the crunch of the butter’s salt.

Even the worst versions of the jambon-beurre are fundamentally pleasing in their evocations, if not necessarily in the eating. Mushy baguette and insipid ham summons the “ah, but at least I’m in France!” feeling of being stuck in an airport or having just barely flung oneself onto a train in time, and making do. That sad transit-station sandwich is closer to the jambon-beurre’s origins, as a laborer’s casse-croûte, than the versions that tend to draw long lines in Paris, where the Ritz sells one for fifteen euros, and where the celebrity pâtissier Cédric Grolet caused a sensation, a few years ago, by adding a superfluous shaving of black truffle. In New York, too, the luxury jambon-beurre is having a moment. You can find ideally restrained renditions at Le Paris Dakar, with locations in Brooklyn, or L’Ami Pierre, in midtown, or at any of the outposts of Frenchette Bakery, whose parisien is pitch-perfectly Parisian, even if the sandwich draws on a North American pantry, with butter from Vermont and porcelet ham from Quebec. La Bicyclette, a shop with four locations in Brooklyn, has its partisans, but I find their ultra-crusty bread a little unwieldy for the form. Other sandwich obsessives wave the flag for Pavé—another midtown shop, where the chef, Jonghun Won, smears his airy baguettes with Beurre Bordier and a smidge of mustard—though I respectfully maintain that he tends to pile on too much ham.

Loaves of baguette in the making.

即将成形的法棍面包。

The best jambon-beurre in the city is also the newest. It can be found at Richaud Petite Bakery, an exceedingly Gallic boulangerie that recently took over a tiny storefront in one of the most picturesque pockets of the West Village. The proprietor, the actor turned baker Richaud Valls, began his boulanger journey as a hobbyist—pursuing, with focussed passion, the ideal baguette—and then, upon finding perfection, launched a baguette-delivery business, zipping his golden batons around the neighborhood by bicycle (in a striped T-shirt, bien sûr!). His baguettes, which I’ve been lucky to eat a number of times over the years, are truly a wonder, missile-shaped and crisp-crusted, with a chewy, salty crumb. So it is a boon to the city that, now that he’s opened a brick-and-mortar bakery, he’s able to turn them into sandwiches.

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For the Richaud jambon-beurre, which has become the bakery’s signature, Valls splits a petite baguette, smears it with a generous portion of Échiré butter (from the west of France; it tastes clean and faintly grassy), and piles on thin shavings of rosy ham and pale yellow Comté, plus halved cornichons and a swash of fiery Dijon mustard. These additions take the sandwich beyond the restrained purity of the jambon-beurre, which I suppose might be considered cheating, but I don’t especially mind—the Richaud jambon-beurre would still be a triumph with just jambon and beurre. The reason this sandwich has won my heart more than others in the city is the torpedo of bread they’re tucked into, which sighs and crackles, an entire universe of complexity and depth in its crumb. Valls, in his signature flat-brimmed cap and a flour-splashed apron, is nearly always manning the store, swivelling back and forth between shaping dough for baguettes, preparing sandwiches to order—refrigeration, a no-no, softens the bread and hardens the butter—and greeting every customer with a grin.

There are other offerings at Richaud, including a selection of viennoiseries—croissants, pains au chocolat or aux raisins—all very nice, and an especially rich and sticky apple turnover. But the breads are the true standouts: boules of sourdough, a pillowlike puff of shokupan, and of course the baguettes—a seemingly infinite array of them, full-length and half-size, most of them plain but a dazzling few rolled in sesame seeds, or black poppy seeds, or, as a Paris-meets-New York flourish, confettied with everything-bagel seasoning. (You can, upon request, have your jambon-beurre made on one of these, though I find that it clutters the flavors a little bit.) There are also other sandwiches, including a smoked-salmon baguette, and a very happy butter-and-jam situation that sent me catapulting back to my childhood, when bread and butter and jam were the closest thing to paradise my little palate could imagine. But with time comes salt: bread and jam is a little too sweet for me now, and I’ve been back to Richaud more than convenience might dictate, ordering the jambon-beurre every time. Paradise, now, is ham and butter, on a wonderful loaf of bread. ♦

Richaud Valls gives his sandwiches a finishing touch.

里肖·瓦尔斯为他的三明治做最后的点缀。