Melbourne Sandwich Watch: If ‘the classics never die’, this panino is immortal (2024)

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Our feeds and faces have never been fuller of sandwiches filled within an inch of their lives. You know the ones. They relish in excess with a laundry list of ingredients stacked so high you (almost) need to dislocate your jaw to get your gob around them all.

Sometimes, bigger is better. Sometimes, less is more – as at Thornbury Italian stallion Umberto Espresso Bar, with a chalked-up lunchtime panini menu worth talking up.

None more so than the bestselling (because it’s the best) veal-cotoletta panino, which has been around as long as the restaurant itself, since 2010. “There’d be anarchy if we took it off,” owner Marco Finanzio says. But what makes it so damned unimpeachable? Sandwich Watch investigates.

The formula is stupidly simple

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“It’s what mum used to make me for school,” says Finanzio. It’s a simple panino with great bread; a great veal cotoletta, or schnitzel; lemon-dressed rocket; and house-made aioli.

But it’s greater than the sum of its parts

“The classics never die!” Finanzio says. “It’s just about simplicity and consistency.” The former means not reinventing the wheel but gaining a masterful control of it, leaning on a tried-and-tested flavour combination but nailing each element. The latter means every one I’ve ever eaten – at least a dozen, from lockdown Panini Parties to while I write these very words – has elicited the same elated eye roll. Perfetto.

A schnitzel that’s not chicken

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Sandwiches starring fried chicken couldn’t be more ubiquitous in Melbourne. Their veal counterparts? Less so. Using backstrap from Thomastown meat merchant Vinces, the Umberto cotoletta is crumbed in-house before getting a shallow pan-fry – not a deep-fry – “so it’s not as oily and heavy”, Finanzio says. Fresh out of the pan and into your panino, it’s always thin, juicy and blushing pink, and never chewy, as veal cotoletta can sometimes be. (It’s also available in non-panino form, as a main course with coleslaw.)

Bread so good the supplier is a secret

“When you only have four ingredients, you can’t give one away,” says Finanzio, staunchly, of his bread supplier. It makes total sense because it’s what makes this panino. The carby vessel never dominates its contents, nor is it diminished by them. The roll is lightly toasted, forming a golden-brown shell that rains down crusty shards as you bite into it, contrasting the soft and airy insides for a tale of two textures. It’s got some height, but the panino squishes down easily, earning an A-plus for smashability.

And the supporting acts?

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A mountain of rocket lends a peppery freshness – and its dressing, a citrusy hit – slices through the star ingredient’s richness, while a swipe of creamy house-made aioli ties it all together (just mind its unsexy trickling into the corners of your mouth).

How do I get one?

The cotoletta panino ($15) is available only at lunchtime from Wednesday to Sunday at Umberto Espresso Bar, 917 High Street in Thornbury. You can dine in or take away.

New restaurant sandwich specials to try

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“There’s dough in dough, as the saying goes,” says Finanzio. A handful of other Italian restaurants are diversifying their offerings with sandwich specials, many at lunchtime. The filled focaccias are guindilla-topped at St Kilda stalwart Cicciolina, and they are on constant rotation at new Windsor hotspot Studio Amaro. Some new pizza-sandwich hybrids have arrived, too: Johnny’s Green Room has Puglian pucce, with fillings like flash-fried calamari, and 400 Gradi’s new panuozzi menu is all about the Neapolitan street food.

This is the latest instalment of Sandwich Watch, a column dedicated to the Melbourne sandwiches you need to know about.

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