Strada Italian sandwiches had its grand opening this past month, adding a fast-casual to Jimmy Pardini’s stable of restaurants, alongside Annex Kitchen, Annesso, and Willow Osteria. Claiming a new space in the northeast corner of the Park Crossing center on North Friant and Audubon, Strada is almost next door to its pizza-centric sister, Annesso.
As Pardini told us in February, “I’d always wanted to do a counter service place ever since I decided I was going to be in restaurants. I wanted to do sandwiches, but I thought, how do you make it Italian?”
The answer, it seems, is focaccia bread.
In Tuscany, they call it (both the sandwich and the bread itself) “schiacciata.” The highly saturated, rectangular dough is squished down by hand (“schiacciare” means “to squash”), oiled, baked and salted until just a little crunchy on the outside, then sliced through the soft middle to make room for fillings. The result isn’t overfilled, like a classic New York deli sandwich, or overly tall and bready. Decidedly horizontal, it’s just a thin, nicely constructed, balanced bite of bread, spread, filling and veg, that hopefully ends up being more than the sum of its parts. I still dream about a spicy schiacciata I had once in Lucca, toasted on the outside and slathered in Calabrian chili.
“You can’t have a truly great sandwich without great bread,” Pardini says. “Right now, we’re making them with semi-soft pecorino cheese or manchego, and then a spread, whether it’s sun-dried tomato or truffle, and then a salty cured meat. And so it’s really a balanced sandwich where just the focaccia and everything compliments one another.”
Pecorino, by the way, is made from sheep’s milk. Easier on the stomach than cow’s milk, and the hard version, Pecorino romano, is, in my opinion, every bit as good as the famous parmigiano reggiano. You can find soft pecorino on three or four different Strada offerings, all of which which mix and match two or three different cheeses, spreads, vegetables, and meat.
Strada has 14 different sandwich combinations on the menu right now, including two with tuscan salami (which substitutes fennel for the black pepper in the more common Genoa variety) and three with classic roasted turkey. They also allow a “make your own,” option, but… well, why don’t you leave that to the professionals, eh, slick?
Everyone knows that we here at Fresnoland Food/FAT City are perpetually in search of Fresno’s best sandwich. And so, in lieu of a traditional “review” (the short version: it’s good) I thought we’d choose our favorite Strada sandwich to order right now.
But first – will I wait in line?
Along with what to order, probably the other most pressing Strada-related question these days is “how long is the line?” I saw the crowd outside and kept driving three or four days before I actually walked in myself. As I like to say, living in Fresno means never having to wait more than a half hour for food. But I tried to remember that I’m doing this as a profession now and finally stuck it out.
I ended up discovering that, despite the crowd of people spilling out along the sidewalk, the wait was only about 20-25 minutes. The sandwiches are ready by the time you reach the register, and the interior had plenty of seating and wasn’t too busy or anxiety-inducing (that feeling of people frantically hovering to secure a vacant seat can kill the vibe, I find).
And finally, the order
I was planning to order a few sandwiches (for science), and with all the time to stand in line, I had my order all ready to go long before I got to the front. A coppa (creamy mozzarella, truffle spread, arugula), a Tuscan ham (Calabrian spread, pecorino cream, mixed vegetables, arugula), and a straciatella (creamy mozz, roasted tomato, arugula, basil pesto, olive oil). Or at least, I thought I did. Then I saw them: golden brown cutlets of panko-crusted, fried… something-or-other.
I checked the menu again. Ah, I thought, that must be the zucchini fritti – crispy zucchini, basil pesto, pecorino cream and artichoke spread. All the sandwiches I tried were good (especially the coppa, with the mild mozzarella cream and intense truffle spread complimenting each other just right), but the zucchini fritti was the showstopper.
Any time you get the chance to order a fried thing in a sandwich, I say do it. This one has the added benefit of making you feel like you’re exercising willpower for ordering vegetarian (but not that much). I wasn’t counting calories, but it’s a vegetarian sandwich with a substantial centerpiece, one that doesn’t feel like a melange of sides as some poorly conceived vegetarian dishes can.
The crunchy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside fried zucchini is not entirely unlike a fried mozzarella stick (in a good way), the pesto is nicely nutty without being overpowering, and the pecorino cream adds both moisture and a savory kick. It’s a little funkier than the mozzarella Strada pairs with their saltier cured meats. And of course, they’re all packed into that leopard-spotted, pizza-oven focaccia that’s Strada’s signature. You can see big slabs of it going in and out of the oven and cooling on racks while you await your sandwich.
All in all, we wouldn’t blame you for waiting for the hype to die down before stepping into Strada. But if you do feel compelled to check it out, the zucchini fritti is my pick.
