Serious Sandwiches: The Bari Italian
Take your cue from Tony and make sure you get the spicy pickled relish on the Italian sub. The Bari Italian is best in its honest purity. There’s no grilled thinly sliced kobe beef, pungent blue cheese, truffle oil, or creamy unpasteurized cheeses anywhere near this sandwich. Instead, it is a workman’s special, a lunch bucket foundation built on freshly baked airy Italian bread from the D’Amato’s bakery next door. The yeasty perfumed loaf is wrapped around hand sliced deli fare like a ruddy capicola streaked with neon orange paprika, peppercorn-flecked Mortadella, pliant provolone, and garlicky Genoa salami. Slices of sharp red onion, translucent tomato and ribbons of crunchy iceberg lettuce dressed in oil and vinegar, a touch of creamy mayo, pepper spiked relish and a verdant speckle of oregano and basil crown what may truly be Chicago’s best sandwich. About the author: Michael Nagrant writes for Serious Eats from Chicago, where he also publishes Hungry magazine. Michael never met an organ meat he didn't like. He hopes to meet many more. Address: 1120 W Grand Avenue, Chicago, IL 60622 (map)
It would seem that a man who wore a Jason (of Friday the 13th) mask for a living and took more than a few discs of frozen rubber to the head during his career isn’t the best person to take food advice from. But Tony Esposito, the Chicago Blackhawks hall of famer was, in hockey parlance, a serious grinder. And as it takes one to know one, Esposito definitely knows his grinders. His framed signed picture hangs in the back of Bari Foods, an Italian grocery brimming with tinned cans of San Marzano tomotoes and gleaming jars of pickled goods, praising the house giardiniera
Bari Foods
Phone: 312-666-0730
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6 Comments:
In Philadelphia, this (minus the mortadella) is called an "Italian hoagie" and is available at every convenience store and sandwich shop within 50 miles of the city...
zach272 at 10:52AM on 02/29/08
Yup, and in Baltimore it's a sub and a mainstay in sandwich shops, etc. as well.
RichardCrystal at 11:13AM on 02/29/08
Best Italian sub I've had anywhere. I'm lucky enough to live just down the street from Bari.
thotfulspot at 12:00PM on 02/29/08
Best Grinder EVER from Gold Hill OR. It used to be called Luigi's, but now it's called Garbage Grinders. Every time I go to Oregon with my wife to see her family we eat there at least once a day.
Montana Eats at 12:20PM on 02/29/08
This may sound very white trash and at the time it may have been my age(20 years ago) and the chemicals going into my body but......in Tuscon AZ there was a sandwich shop called EeeGees (sp) - it was a chain in AZ I think - the best italian grinder EVER.
labrown13 at 1:58PM on 02/29/08
Why the damn shredded lettuce again!? The best way to ruin a good sandwich. How about an actual LEAF of lettuce every so often! The soggy shredded mess doesn't add anything to a sandwich except a wet bread.
DanielJ at 4:02PM on 02/29/08