The Trapizzino — a handheld food that’s essentially a pizza pocket sandwich — will soon become available on the Lower East Side at a restaurant named after the food. Since pizzaiolo Stefano Callegari debuted the first restaurant in Rome in 2008, it has gone from a novelty item to one of the Rome’s essential street foods. And next month, two fanboy restaurateurs will open an outpost at 144 Orchard St. — an attempt to bring low cost, authentic Roman food to a wider audience.
Luca Vincenzini, a former TV producer who grew up in Rome, fell in love with the trapizzino on a trip home and recruited his restaurateur friend, Nick Hatsatouris, the proprietor of LA mainstay, Eveleigh, to make the restaurant happen here.
The pocket part of the trapizzino is a triangular pizza bianca and since Callegari is a pizza chef, the quality of the bread matters. But the fillings are just as important when considering the food’s significance, Hatsatouris and Vincenzini say. Besides braised oxtail and chicken cacciatora, expect filling options like eggplant parmigiana, braised pork, tongue in salsa verde, and pumpkin — all for less than $10.
“For a new generation, unless you’re going to your grandmother’s house in Rome, you’re not going to have it,” he says. “Even in Rome, if you want to have these kind of dishes in a proper restaurant, it’s not going to be cheap. [Trapizzini] make it affordable to have food that has a lot of tradition.”
It took off in Rome partly due to the 2008 recession, when many people sought out more affordable food, says Katie Parla, a longtime Rome-based journalist who covered the rise of the trapizzino. Lots of people tried their hand at creating new street foods, but Trapizzino is the one that really stuck, she says. “It was a repackaging Roman main dishes into a more portable, affordable form,” she says. “It really resonated with the local population.”
The New York versions will be similar to those in Rome, part of the mission to maintain tradition of Roman food, Hatsatouris says. He and Vincenzini are partnering with Callegari for the location, which is expected to open in February. In addition to trapizzini, the restaurant will also serve suppli — rice balls with fillings like pork cheek and tomato sauce, beef ragu, and mozzarella.
But just as with different locations in Italy, the team in New York says that they may eventually create new fillings specific to the diners here. “It’s very much home cooking for the city,” Hatsatouris says.