The Italian Sandwich That Beats Bay Cities
Breaking down one of the best Italian sandwiches in L.A., plus where to get perfect fried pickles.
Heyo!
It’s me, Danny Palumbo, your guy on the inside, with another edition of The Move. I’m currently writing this hungover from natural wine. Some people say that natural wine doesn’t give you a hangover, but those people are categorically full of shit. Wine people, with their effortless fashion and hot bodies, simply can’t be trusted (unless you’re Karl Hess. Man, Karl is cool).
I’ve been eating out a lot this week, and that means regretting how much money I’ve been spending, baby! I’m also researching chili cheese fries for a few different articles, so you can expect a detailed report on that soon, too.
Onward to The Move. Let’s talk about bar food, and find out if the Italian sandwiches in L.A. are any good. Uh oh.
Hey, real quick, though. Subscribe! It helps.
The Fried Pickles at Hermosillo Are Incredible
I fucking love the bar food at The Hermosillo on York in Highland Park, and I love it because they do every little thing right. Their crinkle cut fries ($5) are crispy, creamy on the inside, salted, perfectly munchable, and come served with ketchup and garlic aioli. Their double smashburger ($8) gets the In-N-Out treatment with grilled onions, pickles, special sauce, and they also use Martin’s potato rolls. I haven’t tried the vegan hot dogs yet, but the menu lists veganaise, grilled onions, and coconut bacon which sounds pretty rad. Honestly, I trust that everything The Hermosillo does is going to be good, and that all stems from how well they execute their fried pickles.
Their basket of fried pickle chips costs $6 and they’re perfect.
I prefer fried pickle chips, not spears. Spears get soggy, the breading usually falls off, and there’s just not enough crunch. Hermosillo’s basket of fried pickle chips are a welcomed departure from the poorly made pickle spears I’ve had at comedy clubs my whole life. They uses Heinz pickle chips, then brine them separately with sliced jalapeños and more spices. After that, they bread and fry both the peppers and pickles together. It’s a delicious basket of spicy, salty, fatty, and tangy fried food. In short, it fucking rocks.
A single order of fried pickles at The Hermosillo also has lots of those sought after, crunchy crispy ends of fried breading and jalapeño to keep things interesting. This basket even came with a single end of crinkle cut fry served on top, (the mark of truly great fried food is a random ass fry). Texturally, it simply cannot be improved upon. Oh, and the whole thing gets served with herby homemade buttermilk ranch. Long live the fried pickle chips at Hermosillo. It’s the one thing that keeps me coming back for a good bar hang. A flawless appetizer.
Hot Tip: Hermosillo also does crinkle cut chili cheese fries every Thursday. It’s on my list.
Are The Italian Sandwiches in L.A. Any Good?
These are questions that East Coast transplants often ask: Where can I get good pizza? Good GABAGOOL??? Ma? Ma, where are you?! It’s dark!
New Yorkers who move here truly seem fucking lost. Sorry, you need a car. Embrace it.
On the flip side, champions of Los Angeles will tell you that we’re in the middle of a pizza and Italian sub renaissance, but I sincerely don’t know if that’s true. Good Italian sandwiches and pizza exist, but they feel few and far between.
Take Roma Market’s “The Sandwich.” If you dropped this bare bones sando in another city like New York, Jersey, or Philadelphia, would it get this much attention? Would it be celebrated and written about? I wonder.
Don’t get me wrong, I hold a torch high for Roma, and it’s the one sandwich I eat more than any other. The Sandwich’s strength is its simplicity. Cheap mortadella, salami, capicola, provolone, crusty Sicilian bread, and olive oil. No mayo. No lettuce. No vinegar. Just meat, bread, a little cheese, and a few droplets of EVOO. Still, it remains one of my favorite sandwiches in L.A. because it’s 6-freaking-dollars and the bread is so damn good. There’s nothing like it in Los Angeles, but I can’t help but think there’s plenty of things like it back East.
The Godmother is The Champion of Italian Sandwiches Here, But Should It Be?
I’ve long heard food writers talk about the abundance of good Italian sandwiches in Los Angeles, but none gets high praise quite like Bay Cities’ The Godmother. It’s sloppy, chewy, spicy, bright, and iconic. It’s also widely considered by many to be the best Italian sandwich in Los Angeles (and a far drive unless you live in Santa Monica). But, it’s certainly not your quintessential East Coast Italian sandwich. Far from it. There’s a lot of condiments, and a lot of chewy bread.
Order The Godmother with the works and it comes messy-as-hell with prosciutto, ham, capicola, salami, mortadella, mayonnaise, mustard, pickles, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and plenty of mild or hot peppers sliding out the sides. It’s noisy, extra, and attacks your palate. In a lot of ways, it’s the antithesis of “The Sandwich,” which humbly asks you to eat a loaf of bread with a just a little bit of fixins’. What The Godmother gets right is the meat and hot cherry peppers, what it gets wrong, well, we’ll talk more about that later.
Side note: I’ve written at length about hot cherry peppers, and if there’s one thing the Italian sandwiches in L.A. could use, it’s more hot cherry peppers.
E. Stretto did one of the best Italian sandwiches I’ve had anywhere, the Ill Papa, and their spin included chorizo, Manchego, and finely chopped giardiniera. I’m confident you could plop that sandwich down anywhere in America and it’d have wild success, but their Los Angeles location closed.
Ggiata has a pretty good Italian sandwich, but their seeded loaf is also far too chewy. In fact, a lot of the bread associated with these Italian sandwiches feels like too much jaw work. What’s with the thick bread and not a classic sub roll?
Still, go to Ggiata. They have the best eggplant parm sandwich I’ve ever had the pleasure of inhaling. Truly a top tier parm sando. Their thick, toasty Bread Lounge bread conveniently sops up all the red sauce. It’s warm, hearty, and perfect.
Then there’s Uncle Paulie’s Deli, Giamela’s, and Eastside Italian Deli, but to me none of them feel all that spectacular. So, I don’t consider Bay Cities to be all that legendary—it’s just the best here.
No, there’s not an abundance of truly great Italian sandwiches. But damnit, there are tons of restaurants that care about their sandwiches in L.A. Take Bub & Grandma’s. Every single sandwich they produce they knock out of the park, practically providing the best iteration of that sandwich in Los Angeles. I’m amazed at everything they do, so I went back to see if their Italian could stack up to the best in the city. I wasn’t disappointed.
Yes, Bub & Grandma’s Italian Hoagie is Better Than Bay Cities
And it’s better for a few identifiable reasons.
First, the bread. The filone-style bread at Bay Cities is just too damn chewy, while Bub & Grandma’s sub roll is classic—light, soft, and just chewy enough. Bub’s bread doesn’t feel like work; Bay Cities’ does. And because Bub’s uses a delicate sub roll as their sandwich base, it allows all of the Italian sandwich’s oft-forgotten ingredients to shine brighter.
Nobody understands how to wield iceberg lettuce like a deadly weapon better than Bub & Grandma’s.
Whether it’s their tuna salad sandwich, which features a thick, crispy, out-of-this-world fresh wedge, or their Italian hoagie, which packs a mound of shredded, lightly dressed, perfectly seasoned iceberg, Bub’s knows that lettuce is a key ingredient that shouldn’t ever feel like an afterthought. It should bring crispiness, freshness, and flavor. After eating the Italian sandwich at Bub’s, I’m sure that the rest of the Italian delis are missing this one key component. This is, without a doubt, the freshest tasting Italian sandwich I’ve ever had, and it’s because Bub’s knows the greens are just as important as the meat. For further proof of this, try their rainbow sandwich.
Bub & Grandma’s also uses great provolone cheese.
None of that milky, flavorless Boar’s Head stuff. This is sharp. It’s got funk. Huge points for using good provolone; most places simply are not. When you taste it, you’ll realize you’ve been eating bland, processed nonsense this whole time.
B&G’s also understands, more than Bay Cities, that restraint in a sandwich is key. They feature mustard and mayonnaise, yes, but it’s only a thin layer, not the gobs of stuff you get on The Godmother. Nothing spills out the side. It’s a fat sandwich, but still contained. That’s because this sandwich is balanced. Everything works together equally. The bread is soft, the lettuce fresh, the condiments mild but packing punch, and the meat’s savory and filling.
It’s amazing how no one ingredient shines more than the other. This sandwich has so much stability that you’ll find yourself noticing the warm, woody notes of black pepper. It might not be the Italian sandwich you were expecting, but it’s the one you need to try.
Note: I haven’t tried Cosa Buona’s version of the Italian sandwich, but Eater editor Matthew Kang loves it. It’ll be next.
The Italian sandwich at Bub & Grandma’s features thinly sliced dry coppa, mortadella, salami, capicola, aioli, shredded iceberg, red onion, pepperoncini, yellow mustard, giardiniera, house pickles, and sharp provolone cheese. It costs $15.50.
Bub & Grandma’s
3507 Eagle Rock Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90065
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My name’s Danny Palumbo, and I’ve simply eaten too many sandwiches. Ciao.