NYC Croque Monsieur elevates art of the sandwich

The scene: La Maison Du Croque Monsieur is very well located for Big Apple visitors, just off bustling Union Square Park and convenient to one of the most popular and vibrant neighborhoods in the city. It is also close to the New School and New York University, making it equally popular with students, who tend to hang out with their laptops upstairs, reinforcing its French café conceptual roots. The two floors have much different vibes, with the ground level laid out like a classic New York pizzeria, a small, narrow space with a counter across the back for ordering, and little else, just a white and black tile floor, some high-top bar-style tables and a menu on the wall. Despite its Parisian pretensions, this is simply a riff on the city's many types of fast food, with no wait staff and much of it sold to go. If you do eat in, your sandwiches will be served in paper bags labeled with their description on metal trays.

The upstairs is equally small and even narrower, but outfitted with real tables and real chairs, all of heavy dark wood, and this is where the students and others who take a more leisurely approach to the experience linger. At one end of the upstairs is an old office desk, complete with antique typewriter and jars filled with utensils, the main decorative attempt to give the otherwise commercial and tiny self-service eatery a little sophisticated Euro flair. Interestingly, the building was once home to a woman who self-published artistic erotic books, on her own hand-powered printing press, and the desk is a literary nod to this tradition, as are the slate of sandwiches, each named for one of the men in her long series of lovers. Despite this interesting historical tie, at the end of the day, it is a place to grab something quick and different.

The same Belgian owner has a popular full-blown bistro, bar and mussels place nearby called Petite Abeille, and its croque monsieur has proven one of the most popular and enduring menu items, so this was created a spin-off to offer far more options quickly and simply.

Reason to visit: Croque monsieur with your choice of high-end cheese, decadent dessert croques

The food: New York has lots of hyper-specialized eateries, and if there is an obscure or unusual food you are seeking out, there is no place in the country you are more likely to find it. So when I heard that a specialist croque monsieur place was opening, I was excited, because this classic French bistro specialty is both delicious and hard to come by in this country. It is unusual to see the sandwich on a menu here at all, and when I do, I almost always get it.

So let's be clear: these are modern interpretations inspired by the classic but not quite the genuine article. The croque monsieur, a classic Parisian comfort food, is a grilled ham and cheese sandwich featuring gruyere or a similar cheese like comte or emmentaler. Like a standard grilled cheese, it becomes stuck together and inseparable. The key difference is its use of the secret ingredient bechamel, a decadent white sauce made from flour and butter, which makes it a little bit goopier and a whole lot richer. The bread is some form of regular toast, merely a supporting character to the insides, and when a fried egg is added, it becomes a popular variant known as the croque madame.

Here the result is more like a panini, using sliced crusty artisan bread (they call it "White Country Bread") rather than toast, which is thicker and plays a much bigger part in the sandwich. This reduces the adhesion, especially in the many modern and whimsical takes, and in the classic, the bechamel use is minimal and not very pronounced. All that being said, if you are not a slave to the notion of "authenticity," you get a really good sandwich with a ton of unusual options. They could have just as easily called it the Panini House and the results would be just as tasty.

The menu is divided into three sections, Classic Croques, Vegetarian Croques and New Croques, in turn split between savory main course sandwiches and sweet dessert versions. All told there are some 16 options plus a creative daily special (roast pork with mango chutney and cheddar when I visited). Furthermore, the classic Mr. Henry and its egg-added croque madame spinoff are each available with five different cheeses, for more than two dozen choices here without any special orders. Once you pick your sandwich, there's not much more to decide: sides are limited to bagged potato chips and a small slate of drinks, including a limited beer and wine selection and assorted coffee drinks.

The commonality is the very high quality of the ingredients and this is what makes the sandwiches shine. The cheeses are real Swiss gruyere, French raclette, English Tickler cheddar and French comte, one of the world's most revered and carefully made cheeses, not the lower-quality domestic imitations widely served in restaurants. The goat cheese is from New York's award winning Coach Farm, the marmalade from Spanish Seville oranges. I don't know where they get their smoked salmon, but it's good stuff. All sandwiches feature fresh, first-rate ingredients, and you can taste the difference. While substantial, they are not overstuffed, emphasizing taste over bulk.

For the standard croque monsieur, Mr. Henry, gruyere is the classic cheese choice of purists, but going with cheddar or raclette offers a much different flavor. Among the most popular is the Mr. Edmund, with fresh mozzarella (from famed New York purveyor Murray's Cheese), tomato, basil and pesto, which was very tasty. This is a spin on a widely available sandwich in Italy, and many of these are "croqueified" versions of recognizable staples, including a take on the Cuban (Mr. Joaquin), tuna melt (Mr. Lawrence), basic breakfast sandwich (Mr. Rupert), and even a Thanksgiving-inspired turkey with cranberry sauce (Mr. Antonin). Then there are more out-of-the-box originals, like roast pork with pickled pear slices and English cheddar or goat cheese with Seville orange marmalade. There really is something for everyone, and thanks to the luxurious ingredients, they're all pretty good. I really liked the smoked salmon and Boursin goat cheese (Mr. James), a combo you don't usually get on a hot sandwich.

Finally, there are the not-to-be-missed dessert options, which you should pop in for even if you're not hungry for a sandwich. Mr. Gonzalo combines slices of banana and sweet mascarpone cheese with addictive Nutella, for a warm, gooey s'mores-like treat that is really, really good. The more grown-up Mr. Rene combines a creamy processed French cheese spread with Dutch sweet crackers and strawberry jam for a delicious result that is sort of the sandwich version of English afternoon tea's scone with jam and clotted cream.

There's nothing life-changing about the menu at La Maison Du Croque Monsieur, but for visitors strolling downtown, it is a notable and unique alternative to its grab-and-go peer group options including pizza or deli sandwiches, a fast, affordable, but artisanal take on street food.

Pilgrimage-worthy?: No.

Rating: Yum! (Scale: Blah, OK, Mmmm, Yum!, OMG!)

Price: $-$$ ($ cheap, $$ moderate, $$$ expensive)

Details: 17 East 13th Street, New York City; 212-675-2227; croquemr.com

Larry Olmsted has been writing about food and travel for more than 15 years. An avid eater and cook, he has attended cooking classes in Italy, judged a barbecue contest and once dined with Julia Child. Follow him on Twitter, @TravelFoodGuy, and if there's a unique American eatery you think he should visit, send him an e-mail at travel@usatoday.com. Some of the venues reviewed by this column provided complimentary services.