Sardine Toast with Lemon, Capers and Dill was not on the chalkboard menu at the place in Mevagissey. It was what Tom made for himself between lunch service and dinner, standing at the pass, eating it off a piece of brown paper.
I had walked in for the fish stew. The dining room held maybe sixteen people. Two tables of locals, a tourist couple by the window, and me on a stool at the counter because I had asked for one seat at six on a Tuesday and that was what was left.
Tom owns the place with his wife, Sian. Cornish accent thick enough that I missed half of what he said at first. I watched him split a tin of sardines onto a slice of sourdough his neighbour had baked that morning, mash it with the back of a fork, scatter capers, dill, lemon. He saw me looking and pushed half of it across the counter.
“Tea-time food,” he said. “My nan ate this every Sunday.”
That bite is the reason I am writing this.
The Tiny Restaurant in Mevagissey Where I First Ate It
Mevagissey is a Cornish fishing village on the south coast, about an hour south of Truro. The harbour still works. Trawlers come in early and the gulls know. Tom’s restaurant has six tables and a door that does not quite shut properly when the wind is up.
He kept feeding me bites of things. A spoon of cockle broth. A wedge of cured mackerel. But the sardine toast was the one I kept thinking about on the long drive back to the cottage, and then again on the flight home.
I asked how he made it. He shrugged. “Good tin. Good bread. The rest is just what is in the kitchen.”
Why Sardines on Toast Is Older Than You Think
A small fact that surprised me. Sardine toast became a fixture of British home cooking after 1822, when Joseph Colin started canning sardines in oil in Nantes. By the late Victorian period, tinned pilchards were one of the cheapest shelf-stable proteins in Britain. School lunches. Sunday tea. Post-war thrift food.
It is nostalgic working-class food in Britain. Almost the same idea, plated more formally, runs the smørrebrød tradition in Denmark with akvavit alongside. The version Tom served me is essentially the Nordic styling, with bright acid and a thick handful of dill cutting through the oily fish, all sitting on the British “on toast” frame.
What Tom serves is the modern revival. The 2020s tinned-fish renaissance turned a humble pantry tin into something gastropubs now charge real money for. Mitch Tonks at The Seahorse in Dartmouth made his version famous a few years back. Jamie Oliver has done a few of them too. Cornish fishermen and Lisbon market vendors and Copenhagen lunch counters were doing it long before any of that.
People ask me if this is anchovy toast. It is not. Anchovies are a salty background note. Sardines are the meaty star. Completely different dish.
What I Used
- 4 thick slices rustic sourdough, about three quarters of an inch
- 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
- 1 large garlic clove, halved lengthwise for rubbing
- 2 tins oil-packed sardines (4.4 oz each), packing oil reserved
- 1 lemon, zested and juiced
- 2 tablespoons brined capers, drained and roughly chopped
- 3 tablespoons fresh dill, roughly chopped, plus sprigs to finish
- Flaky sea salt
- Freshly cracked black pepper
Making Sardine Toast with Lemon, Capers and Dill in My LA Kitchen
I get the sourdough from the bakery on Sunset that does the dark, slightly sour loaf. Three quarters of an inch thick. Any thinner and the toast cannot hold the topping. Any thicker and you cannot bite through it cleanly.
The sardines matter most. I tried this with a cheaper tin once. Watery, soft, no spine. Do not. Spend the four extra dollars on the Portuguese tin packed in olive oil with the skin and bones left in. The bones are soft, edible, and they carry most of the calcium that makes this dish quietly nutritious.
Capers are not optional. Olives are not a swap. The capers carry a floral, briny pop that cuts through the oily fish in a way nothing else does. I learned that the hard way one Tuesday with a jar of green olives because I had no capers and could not be bothered to walk down to the shop. The dish lost its spine.
Here is where the dish punishes impatience. My broiler runs hotter than I think it will and browns one side faster than the other and I keep forgetting. The first time I made this for friends I left the toast under for thirty seconds too long and the edges went from golden to charcoal. Pulled the pan, scraped, started again. Set a timer. Watch through the oven door.
The garlic rub is the step everyone wants to skip. Do not. The heat of the bread grates the raw garlic into the surface and you get something that fried garlic cannot replicate.
When you pile the sardines back on, do not over-mash. Keep some bigger flakes. A puree is not the goal.
Sixty to ninety seconds back under the broiler at the end. Not longer. The sardines do not need cooking. They need warming, and the edges need to catch just enough to caramelise. I stand with the oven door cracked open, watching, the kitchen window open because June in LA is warm enough that the dill on the counter starts to wilt by the time I plate up.
A Few Honest Twists
For a Scandinavian lean, dark rye in place of sourdough and paper-thin red onion under the sardines. With akvavit if you have it, a cold pilsner if not.
For a more British tea-time version, less lemon, a bit of butter on the toast, and a strong black tea like the one Tom kept refilling. I tried this with frozen prawns once on a hungover Sunday because I had run out of sardines. Reader, no. Go to the shop.
I always use two tins. Sometimes one is enough for two toasts. Mostly I want the leftover in the bowl to eat on a cracker afterward, standing at the counter, before anyone else is up.
The first bite still tastes like Mevagissey to me. Salt air, the door rattling, a stranger pushing half his lunch across the counter to someone he had known for nine minutes. That is the thing I cannot put in the ingredient list.
Sardine Toast With Lemon, Capers And Dill
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Position an oven rack about 6 inches from the broiler element and preheat the broiler on high. Line a rimmed sheet pan with foil for easy cleanup.
- Brush both sides of each sourdough slice generously with 2 tablespoons of the extra-virgin olive oil. Lay the slices in a single layer on the sheet pan.
- Slide the pan under the broiler and toast for 1 to 2 minutes per side, watching closely, until the bread is deeply golden at the edges and crisp on the surface.
- Remove the toasts from the oven. While they are still hot, firmly rub the cut side of the halved garlic clove over the top of each slice. The hot bread will grate the garlic into the surface.
- Drain the sardines, reserving 1 tablespoon of the packing oil. Transfer the sardines to a small bowl and break them up gently with a fork, keeping some larger meaty pieces for texture.
- Add the reserved packing oil, the juice of half the lemon, the chopped capers and 2 tablespoons of the chopped dill to the sardines. Fold together gently with the fork until just combined, then season with a small pinch of black pepper.
- Pile the sardine mixture generously onto the warm garlic-rubbed toasts, mounding it slightly in the center and pressing it lightly so it stays put.
- Return the topped toasts to the broiler for 60 to 90 seconds, just until the edges of the sardines begin to caramelize and sizzle. Do not walk away, as they catch fast.
- Transfer the hot toasts to a serving board. Drizzle each one with the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and a small squeeze of the remaining lemon juice.
- Finish with a generous shower of lemon zest, the remaining tablespoon of fresh dill, flaky sea salt and a final crack of black pepper. Serve immediately while the bread is still hot and crisp.