TA in Crookesmoor sells one of the best sausage sandwiches in Sheffield
If you want to find a top-quality sausage sandwich in Sheffield there is only one place you go to look first.
Piper’s Artisan Sausages in Crosspool has made a name for itself as providing the very best, highest-quality meat-stuffed casings in the city. It now provides sausages for many of the major restaurants and cafes in sausages .
Naturally, then, we asked Nick Piper, a former University lecturer and owner, where to find the best sausage sandwich in Sheffield. He sent us to TA, a recently opened neighbourhood café in Crookesmoor Road.
The café, which was meant to be a pasta shop until a pregnancy changed plans, is owned by couple Ben Beagles and Charlie Semark, who have two young children, Rafe and Elio. It has its own roastery, producing a beautifully smooth cup of coffee, and has a simple, and yet, extremely tasty menu.
The star of the show, however, is the sausage sandwich.
The sandwich features a Piper’s meaty sausage that packs power and weight. It sits atop a thin layer of caramelised onions, in a toasted brioche bun that is wonderfully but overpowerfully sweet, soft and with a tiny crunch from the outer crust. Dusted in a combination of paprika, tomato, shitake and a whole load of other spices (Ben showed me his recipe, and it has a lot of wonderful ingredients), this is a joy to eat.
Ben and Charlie run the neighbourhood cafe TA together(Image: Andrew Dowdeswell / YorkshireLive)
The sausages, of course, are central to the sandwich. Supplied by Piper’s, they are called boerewors sausages, a South African blend of beef and pork. Ben said their love of the sausages came from working with Orange Bird owners Anne Horner and Matthew Duggan-Jones at Marmadukes.
They feel significant, substantial. This is not your cheap supermarket, fake-pork brigade. They come with a punch, like you’re eating a slab of tastefully spiced and blended meat. Just what you want from an old school sausage.
The onions add a lovely smoothness to the sandwich. They do not overpower the sausage’s meaty flavour, but complement it wonderfully. It is slightly sweet, very jammy, and just what is needed. No ketchup required.
And then there is the brioche bun. Buttery, sweet, spongy, almost the texture of a croissant, with a doughy centre and an ever-so-slightly crusty outside, it is the most perfect house in which this sandwich lives.
“I love the sausage rolls Piper’s made,” Ben told YorkshireLive . “Through conversation and eating a lot of sausages, we settled on this sausage sandwich.” On the menu is also an egg sandwich, and Charlie said a lot of customers would ask to add a sausage to the egg sandwich. At that point, they thought, why not just sell a sausage sandwich.
My sausage sandwich and black americano from TA(Image: Andrew Dowdeswell / YorkshireLive)
TA offers more than just sausage sandwiches, however. Perhaps the most unique part of the café is its coffee machine. Ben said it is one of only two machines like it in the country, using a lever system rather than a pump. Several coffee nuts, he said, have come to the café just to see the machine in action!
Ben and Charlie have also just secured their alcohol licence, and will be opening in the evenings, selling cheese, wine, beers and “the best” cider.
“We just want to be a neighbourhood café and an absolutely staple of the Sheffield food scene,” Ben said. If they continue in the vein of the sausage sandwich, that won’t take very long at all.
Get all the latest What’s On news straight to your inbox by signing up to our newsletter here.