Gatsby
Photo: HelenOnline · CC BY-SA 3.0

History

Rashaad Pandy, who ran a food shop in Athlone on the Cape Flats, fed a crew of workers in 1976 by filling a large loaf with slap chips, polony and achar and cutting it into wedges. One of the workers, nicknamed Froggy, called it a Gatsby smash after The Great Gatsby, which had been screening at a cinema nearby, and Pandy put the name on the counter. The sandwich spread across Athlone, Mitchells Plain and Gatesville, where the standard grew to a footlong measured in quarters, and the fillings widened to masala steak, fried calamari, polony and Vienna sausage.

Common allergens: Gluten, Egg, Milk

Make it at home

Yield Serves 2 to 4Hands-on 35 minTotal 50 minDifficulty Easy

Ingredients

  • 1 long Portuguese or Vienna loaf, about 40cm
  • 800g floury potatoes, cut into thick 1.5cm chips
  • Sunflower oil for deep-frying, about 1.5L
  • White spirit vinegar, in a shaker
  • 400g rump or minute steak, sliced thin
  • 2 tbsp mild masala or curry powder
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • 3 tbsp mango or mixed-vegetable achar
  • 2 tbsp mayonnaise and 2 tbsp tomato sauce
  • Salt and coarse black pepper

Method

  1. Rinse the chips, dry them well, then blanch in 150C oil for 5 minutes until soft but pale. Lift out and rest 10 minutes.
  2. Raise the oil to 190C and fry the chips again for 3 minutes until crisp. Drain, salt heavily and shake vinegar over them while hot.
  3. Fry the onion in a dry hot pan with 2 tbsp oil until browned at the edges, add the masala and cook 30 seconds, then add the steak and fry hard for 2 minutes so it colours rather than stews.
  4. Split the loaf lengthwise, leaving a hinge, and spread mayonnaise on the bottom and tomato sauce on the lid.
  5. Layer the chips first, then the steak and onion, then spoon the achar along the length. Press the lid down firmly.
  6. Cut straight through into quarters and serve immediately, while the chips are still crisp.

Tip from the editors. The chips go in before the meat, not after: they soak the sauce and keep the base of the loaf from turning to paste.

Where to eat gatsby

Gatsby in Cape Town

Super Fisheries ★ 4.0

$ South AfricanAthlone

Super Fisheries still sells Rashaad Pandy's original combo of polony, chips and achar in Athlone, Cape Town, where he first cut a gatsby into wedges in 1976.

TryPolony gatsby with chips and achar

TipBring cash; the counter is cash only, though a Capitec ATM sits right next door.

Directions

Golden Dish ★ 4.0

$ South AfricanAthlone

Golden Dish is a halal takeaway counter in Gatesville, Athlone, founded in 1969 and back since July 2024 after a fire, famous for Cape Town's big gatsby.

Why locals goFounded in 1969 opposite Athlone Stadium and now in the Gatesville shopping centre, it is the gatsby stop Cape Flats families swear by, while day trippers rarely cross the M5.

TipOrder the large gatsby to share between two; it trades until 02:00 on Friday and Saturday nights and closes on Sundays.

Directions

West Coast Fisheries ★ 3.9

$ SeafoodMilnerton

West Coast Fisheries fries hake and chips at Centre Court on Koeberg Road in Milnerton, on the northern edge of Cape Town, priced as a family takeaway.

TryFried hake with chips

TipIt also sells fresh fish daily, and the menu runs to calamari, BBQ ribs, Mega-burgers and Cape gatsbys if hake is not the plan.

Directions

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