This past summer, I lucked into my first food service job, which was no small thing. Applying for those jobs was a challenging, demoralizing process that exposed me to some interesting new sights and experiences, like being ignored by McDonald’s, which I hadn’t realized was possible. Fortunately, I knew someone who was able to get me an interview for an open barista position, and that interview apparently went well enough that one Prato Bakery was willing to take a chance on me.
I took well to the work. For all the job’s challenges— lunch rushes, fulfilling massive delivery orders, customers who were blissfully ignorant of how annoying they were— I really did enjoy it. Even if I burned myself on the steamer my first day.
The pay with tips was good, making coffee was fun, and the workload, at least before I got hit with a car and broke my hand, was manageable. But the best part had to be the free food.
Prato Bakery offers a series of sandwiches called schiacciate: various toppings on foccaccia drizzled with olive oil. They’re pricey, and don’t look like much, but they were as filling as they were delicious. As a barista, I had the opportunity to make one for myself every shift. I picked a different one each day, not just out of curiosity, but to recommend sandwiches to customers from a more informed place.
I’m writing this over my winter break, where my chances of returning to work seem heartbreakingly slim. To mourn the premature death of my barista career, and to generate more content for my loyal readers, here are the top five schiacciate I tried at my job over the summer.
5.The Venezia
The Venezia opens the list as the most complex sandwich, and a big sleeper pick for anyone that knows how I eat. It has six ingredients, a quantity unrivaled by any other sandwich on the menu: Artichoke cream, eggplant cream, pecorino toscano cheese, prosciutto cotto, arugula, and spicy sauce.
I say the Venezia is a sleeper pick because it incorporates artichokes and eggplants, two vegetables I typically dislike (particularly eggplants. Those are vile). And yet, in this sandwich, they’re somehow not dealbreakers. Maybe they’re masked by the spicy sauce or the somewhat sharp pecorino cheese. In any case, it’s delicious, although the long list of ingredients made it a slight pain in the ass to make.
4.The Firenze
On the utter flip side, the Firenze is simple yet effective. Just two ingredients: prosciutto di parma and mozzarella. I think sandwiches as simple as these rely more on the focaccia olive oil baseline, which is the X-factor that makes all of these recipes good.
This job really drove home how effective olive oil is at making things tasty. Without it, the Firenze would rely on the prosciutto di parma, cured ham sliced from a large shank, for its dominant flavor, and I don’t think that would satisfy anyone. The mozzarella cheese, a waxy deli version cut in rectangular slices, doesn’t add enough to compensate either. If there’s any message you should take from this blog post, it’s that olive oil is the secret to a really good ham and cheese sandwich.
3.The Roma
This one is made from porchetta, roasted peppers, and mozzarella cheese. More than the others, this one feels very balanced. The porchetta, a form of roast pork used here as a deli meat, is sliced thickly, and the peppers are applied as a dense spread. The sumptuous meat and vegetable on the focaccia makes the Roma feel like a full meal complete with protein, carbs, and fiber. The flavor of the sandwich is commensurately complex and layered. Other than that, there’s not much to say about the Roma; it’s just plain good.
2. La Rustica
This one has the Italian definite article in its name, so you know it’s serious. Indeed, La Rustica is a serious sandwich, combining prosciutto di parma with stracchino cheese and truffle cream. The truffle cream, derived from olives, defines this sandwich; during my training, I was told to taste it so I would know why I shouldn’t use too much of it. As you might expect, it’s a strong and expensive flavor.
Unlike the other cheeses we used, the stracchino is a sticky, creamy spread. It isn’t sliced from a block, but spooned out from a container. Although, the meat is the same prosciutto used in the Firenze, the relatively exotic ingredients make the eating of this sandwich feel aristocratic.
1. The Bronte
The schiacciate supreme. The most popular sandwich among customers, and for good reason. It’s composed of mortadella di bologna, buffalo mozzarella, and pistachio cream. The latter ingredient, a grainy green condiment with the consistency of ranch dressing, was primarily what set this sandwich apart from its peers, but it also had the added distinction of being the only sandwich in the display case to feature mortadella, a bright pink deli ham studded with cubes of fat and even more pistachios.
This unique meat, united with the decadence of the thick sliced mozzarella and the pistachio cream, made for a sandwich experience like no other, making the Bronte feel truly luxurious to eat. It was the defining meal of the experience, and if I get the chance to work at Prato again, it will be my first shift sandwich.
I know I could easily go back to my old workplace and order the Bronte, or any other schiacciate, again, but I probably won’t. Because they are expensive. Thank you for reading.
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