The history of the chivito – Uruguay’s gigantic steak sandwich

Uruguay’s most famous sandwich, the Chivito, was created in 1944. Antonio Carbonaro ran a bar on the peninsula of top summer resort Punta del Este on the corner of Calles 31 and 32. One day a customer from the mountains of Argentina was on her way back home and wanted to order something quick. So she asked for baby goat (chivito).

The kitchen was closed but Antonio was eager to please. He buttered a bread roll and made a sandwich with a slice of ham on a quarter-pound slice of steak. The lady loved it and he baptised the sandwich a chivito.

Carbonaro went on to sell a thousand chivitos a day.  Over time more ingredients were added including cheese, tomato, lettuce, ham, bacon, egg and olives, making the chivito which you’ll inevitably find in any Uruguayan restaurant here and anywhere else  in the world.

What does a chivito typically include?

It really depends and most restaurants really push the boat out with enormous sandwiches accompanied by mountains of fries and sometimes potato salad (yes, two potato dishes, I know, weird) that are big enough for two.

The eggs may be hard-boiled or fried. Onions maybe raw or fried. A good chivito will always be on warmed bread.

But the most basic chivito ingredients nowadays are steak, lettuce and tomato in a bread roll.