The five greatest sandwiches of all time, according to David Lynch: “The chips are optional”
David Lynch was one crazy guy. One only has to watch a minute of one of his films or just read the plot synopsis to a single episode of Twin Peaks to understand that his brain worked in a different way from everyone else’s. Away from the screen, he was just as nutty as anyone who has seen any of his legendary ‘weather reports’ can attest to.
Something that Lynch was particularly odd about was food. Edibles played a big part in his life, both creatively and personally. For his cameo role in Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, he had just one request – that his dressing room contain a ‘big bag’ of Cheetos. He would habitually eat at the California burger restaurant Bob’s Big Boy throughout the 1970s and 1980s, to the point that fans formed a makeshift mural there upon hearing of his death in early 2025. In his fictional worlds, perhaps his most famous use of food was in Twin Peaks, in which Kyle MacLachlan would regularly order a slice of cherry pie, usually paired with a cup of coffee.
Journalist Raquel Laneri found out firsthand just how much the director loved food when she interviewed him for Forbes. “I somehow found myself sitting with a couple other journalists and Lynch at the Russian Tea Room in midtown Manhattan,” she recalled on her Substack following his death, before revealing that she asked him if he wanted to do a ‘Top Five’ list for the publication. “Top five anything?” Lynch responded. When Laneri said yes, he then asked, “Can I talk about sandwiches?” Eager to speak to one of her idols, the journalist gave him the go-ahead.
“I went back to my editors who were essentially (understandably) like, ‘Um, we can’t publish this,’” Laneri revealed. “But then, miraculously, they had a change of heart. Maybe they just desperately needed content. Regardless, they posted David Lynch’s top five sandwiches in December of that year on Forbes, complete with near-pornographic close-up images of these sandwiches that sometimes did not match Lynch’s descriptions at all. But come on, we hear you cry, what were the sandwiches? Well, without further ado…
First up, we have a classic – the Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato (BLT). “The bacon has to be super crispy, almost burned and snappable,” he said. “The sandwich has to be contained in levels within the bread — not spilling out on the edges. Use toasted white bread, iceberg lettuce and mayonnaise.” Another sandwich staple, the Grilled Cheese, followed, with Lynch decreeing that any effort should be “well grilled using white bread and plenty of butter until the cheddar cheese is melted and hot.”
“The egg salad has to be thick but spread out uniformly across the bread so that is it contained within the sandwich and is not spilling out,” Lynch said of his next entry, which was followed by discussion of the Peanut Butter sandwich, which he described as “hard work and messy, but… worth it.”
Finally, the unlikely crooner advocated for something a little more upmarket: Chicken with Swiss Cheese. “Three slices of chicken will blend nicely with one thick slice of Swiss cheese,” he revealed, before announcing that he likes to pair this dish with a bag of crisps (potato chips for our American audience. “I like Lays – original style – potato chips with the chicken sandwich,” he said. “The chips are optional with the other sandwiches.”
