A panini from Sanpanino | Picture by Cole Saladino for Thrillist
A panini from Sanpanino | Picture by Cole Saladino for Thrillist
There was a time, within the early aughts, when the panini reigned supreme. Panera Bread had its maintain on us all, and the easiest way to execute a “You Choose Two” was with a pressed half-sandwich. It was the period of Urth Caffé in Los Angeles, whose natural, melty creations got here with a facet of celeb-spotting. And in New York, the panini was made common by legendary retailers like Il Bambino, in addition to nook bodegas that had been promoting their very own pita bread variations.
It was in the course of the top of quarantine that I turned reminded of the panini. Annoyed by the shortage of choices for a work-from-home lunch, I poked into my dad and mom’ cupboard of non-essential cookware and dusted off the Breville panini press that I begged my mother to get at Mattress Tub & Past, when such home equipment had been all the trend. It was virtually classic—the Y2K air fryer.
In between two slices of sourdough bread, I put collectively a basic combo of contemporary mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, and pesto. The griddle strains had been nostalgic. The cheese pull was sensational. I believed to myself, “Why did we ever let go of this?”
Within the U.S., we use the phrase “panini” to check with a single, pressed sandwich, however in Italy, “panini” is the plural type of “panino.” Though the earliest point out of panini seems in a Sixteenth-century Italian cookbook, the sandwich turned fashionable in Nineteen Seventies Milan, when workplace employees, in search of a fast lunch, flocked to the paninoteca, or sandwich bar.
The Italian phrase “panino” interprets to “bread roll,” or “sandwich,” in Italian. However because the phrase trickled its approach right down to English-speaking nations, it has come to indicate a grilled sandwich. “There’s a complete false impression of individuals pondering paninis have to make use of a particular bread, when actually, panini simply means ‘pressed sandwich,’” says Sabino Curcio, proprietor of Anthony & Son Panini Shoppe in Brooklyn. “In Italy, a panini is 2 euros, and there are about two slices of prosciutto in it. So when I’ve buddies from Italy come to the store, they’ll say ‘What you guys put in a single sandwich, we might put in six.’”
The panini motion arrived in America within the late ‘90s—notably in New York Metropolis. “It’s a complicated sandwich, in essence. However I feel New York made it refined,” says Darren Lawless, chef and proprietor of Il Bambino.
Lawless, who opened Il Bambino’s Astoria location in 2006, recollects a time when top-tier panini was actually stepping onto the scene, at now-shuttered spots like Jason Denton’s ‘Ino. “It was just a little wine bar within the West Village that sat about 10 or 11 individuals. Plenty of us cooks went there at evening as a result of the panini had been wonderful,” he says, additionally citing Bar Veloce as a long-time purveyor of excellent high quality, late-night panini.
Leonardo Scarpone of NYC’s Sanpanino references the identical heyday. “Once we first opened, it was 2000, and there was a little bit of a panini craze. Even a typical deli would get the grill and press the sandwiches,” he says.
After which there have been the chains. Pret-a-Manger, Starbucks, and Nook Bakery—the tried-and-true lunch spots for hard-working school youngsters and younger, city professionals—have every, sooner or later in time, served their rendition of the pressed sandwich. However the identify most synonymous with fast-casual panini was Panera Bread.
The Frontega Rooster Panini—a pleasant marriage of smoked rooster, vine-ripened tomatoes, and chipotle sauce—was one thing I seemed ahead to each time I took a visit to the mall. I bear in mind this menu merchandise, exactly as a result of I used to be an anxious teen, and I’d rehearse the identify in my head earlier than stepping as much as the cashier. However I’ve not too long ago been shocked to find that my beloved panini is now referred to as a Toasted Frontega Rooster Sandwich. After I reached out to Panera Bread, asking to speak panini, they declined to remark.
It appears as if Panera has rebranded all of its signature paninis as “toasted sandwiches,” with out ever formally saying the change. In line with Mashed, when one Reddit user questioned why his regular Bacon Egg & Cheese on Ciabatta was now not getting positioned on the panini press, a couple of Panera insiders commented that the chain had transitioned to a Turbochef oven, which favors baked sandwiches over pressed ones. Moreover, paninis just like the Tomato Mozzarella and Coronado Carnitas have been silently discontinued.
Subway caught onto the wave of peak panini in 2004, when it started providing toasted subs. “Toasted subs shortly went from a consideration to an awesome fan favourite, and at this time, the vast majority of the subs bought are toasted,” says a Subway spokesperson. However even nonetheless, the store steered away from the phrase “panini,” calling its new, extra-cheesy sandwiches—which change the toasted roll with crunchy, grilled bread—“Contemporary Melts.”
Possibly phrases are simply phrases. However this advertising and marketing shift might need one thing to do with the sandwich’s downfall. Someplace, in some way, the considered a panini started to really feel passé—the sort of factor you may accept at an airport, or a restaurant that makes a speciality of cobb salads.
“I feel it acquired a foul rap as a result of it wasn’t an inexpensive sandwich to start with. It was all about high quality first. However lots of people checked out it and had been like, ‘Okay, anyone can do that.’ Delis simply sort of took the identify ‘panini’ and utilized it to 2 items of pita bread, or two quesadillas, caught along with a filling,” says Lawless. “In every single place you seemed, each place that you simply walked into, any person was doing their model of a panini, and 99% of the time, it wasn’t appropriate.”
Scarpone provides, “I do not assume panini has waned, however perhaps the time period has simply gotten just a little generic. So many locations had been utilizing the time period ‘panini’ and it was in all probability not as fancy-sounding anymore.”
If the panini is now not having a second, it should imply that one other sandwich is taking its place, and Scarpone suspects that sandwich retailers are harkening again to extra conventional roots. “I feel there are different sandwich retailers opening which have gone the best way of Italian heroes,” he says. “And a number of them don’t have a cooking facility, so the sandwiches are cold-cut-based. I feel it’s simply simpler to make these colder sandwiches. It’s a time-saver factor”
“In every single place you seemed, each place that you simply walked into, any person was doing their model of a panini, and 99% of the time, it wasn’t appropriate.”
A number of of those newly opened, old-school-with-a-modern-twist delis—which concentrate on Italian subs, loaded with chilly cuts—embody Ggiata in LA and Cutlets in NYC. There’s one thing charmingly classic about their sandwiches. Possibly it has to do with the Sopranos resurgence. Or they only {photograph} properly. Instagram loves the wow issue, and a shot of a thick sandwich, splitting open and giving method to layers of coloration, does simply that.
“I feel there’s a kind of a mouth-watering impact,” Scarpone explains. “We’ve tried to stray from loading our sandwiches that approach, as a result of one thing like prosciutto ought to stand by itself. I’m not into packing sandwiches with so many various meats, as a result of it’s simply not carried out that approach in Europe. And it’s good to only have speck with fontina and a few arugula and never complicate it. However would that image look pretty much as good as a loaded sandwich? Possibly not.”
However whereas monstrous sandwiches is likely to be trending proper now, it doesn’t essentially imply that the panini is gone eternally. As an alternative, it’s re-inventing itself. Each Scarpone and Curcio run hybrid retailers. A fusion between New York’s Italian salumerias and Italian paninotecas, Sanpanino provides prospects the freedom of deciding whether or not or to not toast. And Scarpone may be very trustworthy about when it’s acceptable to take action. A prosciutto sandwich, for instance, is best served chilly, however it might be a criminal offense to not warmth up the grilled eggplant.
Anthony & Son, which sells each heroes and paninis, makes the 2 choices nearly indistinguishable. The panini isn’t your typical, griddle-lined, flat sandwich. It’s toasted, sure, however it’s additionally heavy on the meat. With regards to deciphering which choices are ordered extra continuously, each Scarpone and Curcio draw the road at 50/50.
Il Bambino has ventured past the Mediterranean flavors that paninis are sometimes related to. The store’s best-selling El Porko Royale, for instance, is Asian-inspired, with ginger-braised pork that sits within the oven for seven hours.
And never all chains have carried out away with the panini. Although Wawa mysteriously took the panini off the menu a couple of years in the past, it not too long ago introduced it again as a rotational sandwich in January 2021. “In reality, attributable to its recognition, a enjoyable reality to share is that we’d like over 5 truckloads of Panini Bread per week simply to maintain up with the demand!,” says Wawa’s exterior public relations supervisor Jennifer Wolf.
I, for one, won’t ever stop the panini—there’s nothing fairly just like the crunchy bread, the melded flavors, and the gooey cheese. However maybe it’s extra of a novelty now. “There’s nonetheless a couple of of us on the market that also take a number of pleasure within the panini and do it very properly,” says Lawless. However like vogue traits, meals traits are cyclical—and I can’t await the panini to reign supreme on the sandwich board once more.
