Lorraine Williamson
Spain’s best sandwich is not filled with jamón, tortilla or calamari. It is made with pig’s ear. The winning creation, called Comeorejas, comes from Brocata, a small sandwich shop in Albacete that has quickly gained national attention after winning Best Sandwich Spain 2026.
The award has turned an affordable, traditional ingredient into the centrepiece of one of Spain’s most talked-about food stories of the year.
For Albacete, it is also a moment of culinary visibility. The Castilla-La Mancha city is not always the first place mentioned in Spain’s gastronomic map, but this award gives it a reason to be seen differently.
A sandwich with a very Spanish ingredient
Comeorejas takes its name from its main ingredient: oreja de cerdo, or pig’s ear.
Pig’s ear has long been part of Spanish cooking, particularly in traditional bars and taverns, where it is often served grilled, stewed or as a tapa. At Brocata, chef and owner Álvaro Serra has reworked the ingredient into a modern street-food format.
The winning sandwich is made with chapata bread, brown butter, finely chopped sweet piparra peppers, marinated pig’s ear, melted provolone and roasted garlic mayonnaise. More piparra is added on top to lift the richness of the meat.
The result is deliberately bold. It combines crunch, fat, acidity and creaminess, giving the sandwich a clear identity rather than simply relying on novelty.
The technique behind Comeorejas
Part of the sandwich’s appeal lies in how much work goes into an ingredient often seen as humble.
Brocata uses fresh pig’s ears, which are marinated with shichimi, a Japanese spice mix. They are then seared, vacuum-sealed and cooked slowly at low temperature for around seven hours. After that, they are finished on the grill to create a light crispiness.
That combination of slow cooking and final grilling is what gives the sandwich its texture: soft, rich and slightly crunchy.
The piparra peppers play an important role too. Their acidity cuts through the richness of the pig’s ear and provolone, while the roasted garlic mayonnaise adds depth without overpowering the other ingredients.
Why the judges chose it
The national competition judged entries on product, technique and personality. Brocata’s sandwich scored strongly on all three.
According to reports from the competition, more than 150 establishments took part in this year’s Best Sandwich Spain contest. Brocata’s Comeorejas stood out because it used a traditional product in a contemporary way, with enough technical work to make the sandwich feel crafted rather than casual.
A full Comeorejas costs around €12, while a half portion costs around €8.
For a young business, the impact has been immediate. Brocata opened in 2025 in Calle Hermanos Jiménez and has already become a point of interest for food lovers visiting Albacete.
A young business with a clear idea
Brocata is the project of Álvaro Serra, a young entrepreneur from Albacete who wanted to bring together street food and the standards of a more crafted kitchen.
The idea is simple but demanding: sandwiches made with care, good technique and in-house preparation. Marinades, sauces and slow-cooked meats are prepared by the team, while the menu remains small and carefully tested.
That approach reflects a wider shift in Spanish food culture. The bocadillo has always been one of Spain’s most familiar everyday foods, but in recent years it has been increasingly treated as something that can be creative, local and even gastronomic.
Albacete gets a new reason to be noticed
Food tourism in Spain is often dominated by large cities, coastal regions, and destinations already known for their culinary reputations. Yet awards like this can change how smaller or less obvious cities are viewed.
For Albacete, Comeorejas is more than a sandwich. It is a reminder that Spanish gastronomy is not only found in tasting menus or famous tapas streets. It can also appear in a compact neighbourhood shop, inside a warm piece of bread, built around an ingredient many diners might not expect.
Whether pig’s ear is everyone’s idea of the perfect filling is another question. But as Spain’s best sandwich of 2026, Comeorejas has already done its job: it has made people talk about Albacete, about tradition, and about how far a bocadillo can go when someone takes it seriously.
Spain gastronomic tourism is no longer a side trip — it is the journey