Submarine Sandwiches

Submarine sandwiches go by many names. Hoagies, Grinders, Torpedos, Heros, Po’Boys… the list goes on and on. For the most part, these are all referring to much the same thing. There are outliers–Grinders and Po’Boys, generally, refer to sandwiches with hot fillings, for example, while the majority of these are stuffed with cold cuts–but the commonalities are clear. Long sandwiches, served in long, skinny bread rolls split open for the purpose rather than sliced. Italian-style cold cuts. Cheese, maybe. Tomato and lettuce, oil and vinegar, herbs. Some other veggies might not go amiss–onions, bell peppers, olives, etc., and some hot peppers in the form of some kind of relish are almost always welcome.

They have similar origin stories as well. Several years ago, we wrote about the Italian sandwiches of Maine, a style of sub sandwich consisting of ham, cheesse, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, olives, sour pickles, salt, pepper, and oil stuffed into a long roll. This sandwich came about around the turn of the 20th century, when a baker named Giovanni Amato started selling them to the dockworkers of Portland, Maine. Hoagies originated during World War II in the shipyards of Philadelphia. The term “Submarine” for this type of sandwich is said to have originated at a Navy base in Connecticut. “Grinder” was apparently a slang term for Italian-American dockworkers in New England, where that term originated. The nautical connection continues with the mere word “torpedo.” Po’Boys, though not of maritime origin, were originally made to feed striking railroad workers in Louisiana. These sandwiches have always been a workers’ meal, hearty and portable.

Entry-Level Subs

There are a ton of sub places out there. You can’t walk down the street these days without tripping over a Subway, a Jimmy John’s, a Potbelly… I can’t say I partake, too much, of these chains. I do occasionally though, against my better judgement, walk into a smaller sub joint, maybe a one-off, maybe a small local chain, and try something. I started this month off that way, getting the signature “Mr. Submarine” sub from the Chicago-area chain Mr. Submarine, along with an order of their Garlic Fries.

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It’s not a great sandwich. Cheap cold cuts piled into a soft sesame-seed roll, with onions, tomatoes, and lettuce. It scratches an itch, and it’s not an expensive lunch, but there’s really no balance, no thought put into it. It was nearly identical to the “Torpedo” from another similar joint called Submarine City. I’d seen this place in Orland from time to time and been curious, but it took writing about Submarine sandwiches this month to get me to try it.

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The balance seemed better here, with more vegetables to offset the thicker-cut cheap lunchmeat, but the sandwich was no better as a result. Both reminded me, just a bit, of the “Hoagy Supreme” from Taurus Flavors, in that they were a collection of cheap meats with garnish in a soft bread roll. However, the Taurus Hoagy is more inventive in its accompaniments, with herbs and oil, pepperoncini and pickles, onions and tomato.

I’d eat another Hoagy Supreme. I doubt I’ll have the Mr. Submarine or Torpedo again. Though the signature submarine sandwich from Harry’s Sandwich Shop in the loop, also called the Torpedo, was better. The meats were higher quality, and though they were piled in there more thickly than they needed to be, the nice thick slices of tomato, the good amount of lettuce, the addition of green bell pepper, and the overall care that went into the assembly of the sandwich made it a much better sandwich than I expected it to be.

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Signature Subs

All these specially named subs, the items at the tops of these small sub shops’ menus, got me thinking about specialty subs. It seems like many of the Italian delis where I like to get my sandwiches have one special sub, some unique variant that they themselves invented. I stopped by several of the Chicago area’s many great Italian delis to sample a few.

Riviera Italian Imports on Harlem Avenue is well-known to the Chicago fooderati. Years ago, a regular customer came in and special-ordered a sub so often that the folks behind the counter wrote the ingredients for the “Will Special” down on a piece of paper and taped it to the wall for easy reference. Will spread the word about this sandwich, and folks from the long-running local foodies’ forum LTHForum sought out the place and tried the sandwich for themselves. Sadly, Will passed some years ago, but his sandwich has become part of the permanent menu at Riviera as the “Diavolo,” a combination of salami, hot sopressata, prosciutto, and hot capicola with fresh mozzarella and hot giardinera.

This is the kind of sandwich I like, a combination of strong flavors, the salt and funk of the cured meats, salty sour and spicy giardiniera, and the soft cooling effect of the homemade fresh mozzarella make for a good sandwich, even without garnishes like lettuce and tomato. Additionally, Riviera seems to be using the city’s greatest sub sandwich bread, the extra-long baguettes from Damato’s bakery, crisp on the outside yet soft-crumbed enough to conform around the sandwich ingredients rather than compress and push them out. I liked the sandwich so much, I got their prosciutto sub as well.

They pile a good amount of prosciutto into this great bread, along with more of the fresh mozzarella, lettuce, and tomato. The prosciutto is sliced thinner than paper and layered, creating a soft textured sandwich filling, easily bitten through. I hadn’t tried “da Riv” before this month, but I’ll be back.

I discovered Zeppe’s Italian Market in Naperville a while back, when I asked Google to find me the nearest Italian deli after a grueling afternoon spent trying to find my way out of the Bolingbrook IKEA. I recalled that they had a signature sub as well, and made my way back recently.

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Their signature sub is called the “Old World,” and while the bread is your typical Italian Beef-style French roll, what goes into it is pretty spectacular. It contains a nice amount of thin-sliced prosciutto, along with several thick disks of fresh mozzarella and the house bruschetta mix, diced tomatoes with basil and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Frankly, I’d eat this without the prosciutto if it was on better bread, but that salty and delicate-textured ham makes it a treat as is, and since this bread is meant to be somewhat sturdy and absorbent for Italian Beef sandwiches, the wetness of the bruschetta mix and fresh mozzarella don’t phase it at all. It works out to be a pretty special sandwich.

Closer to home, one of our usual suspects here at the Tribunal is the venerable Frangella Italian Market in Palos Park. They have a deli case packed with great stuff, Castelvetrano olives as big as your eyeballs, an array of pasta salads, arancini, sheet pizza, calzones, pasta frittata, and some great Italian cheeses and salumi along with their house-made soups and sandwiches. The latter are usually quite good here, though I have found their bread choices to be inconsistent and a bit puzzling at time.

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Frangella’s signature sub, the “True Italian,” consists of prosciutto, coppa, mild sopressata, and provolone cheese, with the requisite tomato, lettuce, and maybe a little drizzle of oil to keep things moist. This time around, they put these ingredients into a hard roll, which is a better match for them than the softer bread they’ve used from time to time before. I do wish they’d use the Damato’s bread–they carry it for sale. But still, it’s quite a good sandwich, constructed a little oddly but tons of flavor.

Many of these delis are putting their own spin on the classic Italian sub by changing up the meats or other fillings inside the sandwich. Bombacigno’s J&C Inn in the west loop, instead, keeps the insides of the sandwich within the realm of the standard Italian sub, but changes the bread instead, for a really interesting result. Their focaccia sub uses tomato bread instead of a baguette or other roll to enclose ham, salami, mortadella, and provolone, and is a unique signature spin on this classic combination.

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Bombacigno’s is about a 10-15 minute walk from my office, and lately I’ve converted some coworkers into avid fans of the place. The last time we went, every one of us ordered this sandwich. Though the shape of it may take it out of the realm of “submarine” sandwiches, it’s delicious by any measure. The soft, springy, olive-oil infused focaccia topped with sweet roasted tomatoes makes this Italian sandwich even more Italian.

At some places, every sandwich seems to be a signature sandwich. Such is the case with Tempesta Market, a newer series of Italian delis and sandwich shops branching out from the Nduja Artisans line of Italian cured meats. If one sandwich there could be called their “signature” though, it would be the Dante.

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The Dante is filled, even overfilled, with the huge flavors of Nduja Artisan’s salumi–hot soppressata, mortadella, hot coppa, porchetta, and another type of dried salami called finnochinoa, with the typical provolone, lettuce, tomato, and giardiniera. To top it all off, they make an aioli with their incredibly flavorful ‘nduja, a type of spreadable salami bright red from an overload of roasted red chilies. This sandwich is an almost overwhelming combination of big, big flavors, which puts it right in my sweet spot for sandwiches. My one quibble is that the bread, while great bread in its own right, is quite crusty and has a stiffer crumb, such that the ingredients want to escape when biting into it. That won’t keep me from ordering it again–I’ll just bring plenty of napkins.

Best in the Business

I’ve never made any secret that J.P. Graziano is my favorite sandwich shop in Chicago. Their sub sandwiches use the best bread (Damato’s), high quality meats and cheeses, good produce, and most of all a deft hand in balancing flavors, so that each sandwich is as well-made as it can possibly be. I tried their signature sub this month as well, the well-known Mr. G.

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The Mr. G uses imported provolone, with a sharper flavor than the standard mild American provolone, with hot soppressata, prosciutto, Genoa salami, marinated artichokes, basil leaves, hot giardiniera oil, truffle mustard, and balsamic vinaigrette, along with lettuce that’s been seasoned with red wine vinegar and oregano. Jim Graziano told me he originally came up with this sandwich because he wanted to make something as incredible and unique as the Diavolo from Riviera, a statement sandwich. He made something entirely new. Everyone I know who has tried this sandwich has gone back to get it again. It’s compelling. Only a thin layer of meats, but powerful ones, combined with an assortment of complementary flavors and textures, all wrapped up in that perfect Damato’s bread.

You couldn’t ask for a better sandwich. And yet, there are more sub sandwiches on the menu, about a dozen of them. I know, because I’ve eaten them all this month.

The Italian is the classic Chicago sub. Capicola, salami, and mortadella, along with mild provolone, tomato and lettuce. The optional hot giardinera, to me, is less optional than mandatory. This is what every Italian sub in Chicago could and should look like.

The Spicy swaps out the salamis and mortadella of the regular Italian for pepperoni and hot sopressata, making it a bright red chili-rich sandwich to begin with. Again, I like giardiniera with this one, but the meats themselves may be spicy enough for most.

The Tufano’s Antipasto sub is another unique offering from JPG, adding cucumber, black olives, roasted red peppers, pepperoncini, red onion, and marinated artichoke to a base of salami and fontinella cheese, tomatoes and lettuce. It is quite like an Italian appetizer tray stuffed into a sandwich, and is a great alternative when I want both a sandwich and a salad.

The Caprese takes the classic Caprese salad ingredients–tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil leaves–and puts them into a sub along with lettuce, red wine vinegar and oregano. It’s amazing, as is. In the late summer, sometimes they offer a special version with better mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes, as I posted about last week on the fifth anniversary of starting this website.

That rare special is not to be missed. The standard Caprese shouldn’t be slept on either. Basil, tomato, and fresh mozzarella are always going to be a good combination.

The Prosciutto sub from JPG is essentially a Caprese but with a reasonable amount of thin-sliced prosciutto layered in the bottom. It is, as you might imagine, spectacular. The soft, moist, fresh mozzarella is the right partner for the delicate-textured but powerfully flavored prosciutto.

I am not a guy who would normally order a tuna sub. This one, though, is an exception. The tuna is mixed fresh for each sandwich, combined with mayo, roasted red peppers, celery, onion, artichoke, and giardiniera, then loaded into the baguette with lettuce, tomato, and provolone. I still find it difficult to believe that there’s a tuna sub I’ll get excited about, but this is a special sandwich.

The artichoke sub combines fresh mozzarella, marinated artichokes, and roasted red peppers with fresh basil, balsamic vinaigrette, tomato and lettuce. I’ll be honest, it’s not my favorite–I’d like something equally strong in there competing with the big artichoke flavor–but every once in a while I’d get a bite with just the right ratio of artichoke to mozz, red pepper and basil and I’d understand for a moment why people like this sandwich.

The Veggie sub surprised me. This sandwich is one I would go back for again and again. The grilled marinated eggplant is so good, you could almost convince yourself it was a steak, and combined with fresh mozzarella and roasted red peppers, basil leaves, balsamic vinegar, tomato and lettuce, it’s as good a veggie sub as you would find anywhere.

I’m not big on turkey sandwiches. I’ve talked trash on the site before about the “tryptophan-flavored jello” that passes for deli turkey most places. The turkey J.P. Graziano uses is better than that, but not quite a revelation. With provolone, mayonnaise, tomato, and lettuce it would make a fairly ordinary sub. Adding the roasted red peppers though elevates this into something that is legitimately good. I don’t know if I’ll ever have it again–there are too many really excellent subs here–but I’m glad to have tried it.

The American. It’s… well, it’s Polish ham, sliced very thin, which is nice, with American cheese, mayonnaise, tomato, and lettuce. It’s what your picky kid or your unadventurous friend will order when you drag them to J.P. Graziano. And you should.

JPG also has a great roast beef sandwich and an outstanding porchetta sandwich, but both of those are served on ciabatta, nearly as wide as it is long, and thus don’t quite meet the inconsistent definition of subs I’m applying for this post. They’re indispensable though, absolute must-not-miss options in a crowded field of great sandwiches.

My Signature Sub

Of course, my favorite sub, the one that they anticipate I’ll order every time I walk in the door, is a slight variation on the classic Italian. I couldn’t let this month of subs go by without having one of these as well. To get one, ask for the Italian sub, with prosciutto added, sub the imported provolone for the domestic, and add hot giardiniera.

It’s another flavor bomb, just the way I like them, and yet they don’t go too heavy-handed on it, allowing all these strong flavors to work together rather than compete and overwhelm the palate. Try it the next time you’re at J.P. Graziano, or really any Italian deli in town. Just don’t ask for “The Jim Special.” They don’t call it that–YET.