O’ Cuzzetiello makes its debut in New York City. The famous Neapolitan sandwich, which recalls the flavors of a traditional “meatball sub,” was a new concept for Americans until Giuseppe Manco, pizza chef and owner of New York’s Mani in Pasta, brought a piece of his beloved Naples to the city, after having gained popularity with his Roman-style pizza.
Manco, an acclaimed chef and two-time world champion pizza maker at the Las Vegas Pizza Expo, describes the cuzzetiello sandwich as the ultimate Neapolitan Sunday culinary ritual. According to Manco, the quintessence of the dish is all in the scarpetta: an Italian term that refers to mopping up any remaining sauce with a piece of bread – as a sweet final note to your meal.
Giuseppe Manco
The bread used for cuzzetiello is traditionally called pane cafone. It is a homemade rustic bread loaf – light and fluffy inside with a thick and crunchy crust. Neapolitan families used to fill pane cafone with homemade ragù, prepared after slow-cooking a tomato sauce with meat over several hours. What was once considered a family ritual has now become a Neapolitan street-food specialty.
Inspired by tradition and moved by his own feelings of nostalgia, Giuseppe Manco decided to add cuzzetiello to the menu – launching it for the first time at his new Mani in Pasta kiosk, which he manages alongside his wife Eleonora at The Deco, a new food hall in the heart of the Garment District (open since January).
Meatballs, eggplant parm, and philly cheesesteak are the three fillings you can choose from for your cuzzetiello – all ingredients selected by Manco himself. The meatball filling is a nod to the Italian-American classic; the eggplant parm is for all vegetarians (and non-vegetarians, too); while the philly cheesesteak is Manco’s revised interpretation of the classic sandwich from Philadelphia. With the arrival of the summer season, Giuseppe is planning to add more cuzzetiello fillings to the menu – like Neapolitan and Genovese ragù, and a few lighter seasonal options with fish or grilled octopus.
Cuzzetiello (ph Melissa Hom)
“Being a Neapolitan pizza chef who already expanded his skills into the Roman-style pizza, I wanted to go back to my roots once more by bringing something different than the iconic Neapolitan pizza to New York,” he noted. “Cuzzetiello fits the New York street-food style perfectly – and it fits the New York style of eating and walking, even if, unlike the meatball sub, cuzzetiello is saucy yet surprisingly neat.”
New Yorkers can try and enjoy a cuzzetiello sandwich at Mani in Pasta on 14th street near Union Square for both take-out and delivery – and hopefully soon, at a sidewalk cafè, as we wait for the other locations in Midtown and at The Deco to start operating again soon.