Know before you order
The Italian Sandwich Guide
What's in Italy's famous sandwiches, how to order them, and where to find the best ones.
Schiacciata (Florence)
Tuscany's flat, salty, olive-oil bread — Florence's answer to focaccia, crunchier and oilier. Split and stuffed, it's the base of the city's most famous sandwiches. Plain slabs are sold warm by weight at bakeries.
Lampredotto (Florence)
The fourth stomach of the cow, simmered for hours in a broth with tomato, onion, celery and herbs until silky. Sliced to order and stuffed into a round roll. Florence's oldest street food — served from carts called trippai.
Panino con bollito (Florence)
Tender boiled beef in a crusty roll, the top dipped in the cooking broth, finished with green sauce. The perfect gateway sandwich if you're not ready for tripe.
Panino tartufato (Florence)
Tiny soft rolls filled with truffle butter or cream — an elegant Florentine ritual since the 1800s, usually with a glass of sparkling wine.
Pizza bianca e mortazza (Rome)
Rome's thin, crisp-chewy flatbread brushed with olive oil and salt, split open and filled with mortadella. Romans call it 'pizza e mortazza' — the everyday lunch of the city, from any good bakery.
Trapizzino (Rome)
A triangle of pizza bianca dough opened like a pocket and stuffed with slow-cooked Roman classics — chicken cacciatora, meatballs, oxtail. Invented in Testaccio around 2008.
Porchetta (Rome)
Whole roast pork, boned, stuffed with herbs and slow-roasted with crackling skin. The best comes from Ariccia, in the hills outside Rome, and is served at room temperature in a crusty roll.
Supplì (Rome)
Fried rice balls cooked in tomato sauce with a molten mozzarella heart — pull one apart and the cheese stretches like a telephone cord.
Mortadella panino (Bologna)
Mortadella Bologna IGP is a large, finely ground cooked pork sausage, studded with cubes of fat and sliced paper-thin. In Bologna it is folded into a crusty rosetta roll or a warm crescentina, often with soft squacquerone cheese. Locals call it 'mortazza'. Purists say the real thing has no pistachios.
Crescentina & tigella (Bologna)
In Bologna a crescentina is a square of dough fried until it puffs up and is hollow inside. A tigella is a small round flatbread baked in a stamped mould, from the Apennine hills; in Modena tigelle are also called crescentine, which confuses everyone. Split either one hot and fill it with salumi, cheese or 'cunza', a paste of lard, garlic and rosemary.
Piadina (Emilia-Romagna)
A thin, unleavened flatbread from Romagna, cooked on a griddle and folded around fillings. The classic is prosciutto crudo, squacquerone and rocket.
Salumi 101
Prosciutto Toscano (saltier than Parma), finocchiona (fennel salami), mortadella, guanciale (cured pork cheek), Pecorino Toscano and Pecorino Romano. Ask at any salumeria for 'un etto' (100 g) to taste.
Order like a local — phrasebook
| Say this | Means |
|---|---|
| Un panino con il lampredotto, per favore | A lampredotto sandwich, please (Florence) |
| Bagnato | Dipped — top of the roll dunked in the broth (say yes!) |
| Con salsa verde e piccante | With green sauce and chili sauce |
| Pizza e mortazza | Pizza bianca filled with mortadella (Rome) |
| Fine, per favore | Thinly sliced, please (for mortadella) |
| Cento grammi | 100 grams |
| Un gottino di rosso | A small glass of house red |
| Un etto di prosciutto | 100 grams of prosciutto |
| Sottovuoto, per favore | Vacuum-packed, please (for the flight) |
| Da portar via | To take away |
| Posso pagare con la carta? | Can I pay by card? |
More regions coming soon: Naples' street food, Sicily's pane con la milza and Venice's tramezzini.