Porcobrado Rome: after Milan and Florence, the Tuscan sandwich arrives in Monti
Porcobrado Rome. After Milan and Florence, Porcobrado also arrived in Rome. In via Urbana 31 (we are in Monti district), in mid-May 2022 the restaurant dedicated to sandwich filled with pork “made in Cortona”. The project, in fact, was born in the Tuscan town (province of Arezzo) by Angelo Polezzi and of his being greedy: “I wanted a sandwich that was just the way I like it. With the soft, juicy pork, with that smoky hint present but not intrusive, and then melting that blends well with the sauces“. But let’s go in order.
Read also: The best street food in Rome
Porcobrado: the Cortona breeding farm
The project takes shape in 2016. “I wanted a sandwich that I really liked. I wanted it with great quality pork! And which one if not mine?“. Polezzi, in fact, comes from one family of breeders in Cortona: “For a hundred years we have been working various fine pig breeds including the Cinta Senese“. Therefore, at the base of Porcobrado, the raw material. In this case it is a product that arrives directly from the farm, without intermediaries, to the customer. Angelo Polizzi’s pigs are raised outdoors, in the Arezzo countryside, with their space for living and walking and respecting nature, specifies the farmer. And then there is their nutrition: “In intensive farms, in addition to not guaranteeing the animals the vital spaces to move around, there is no ethics or in the choice of food – explains Polizzi -. Those beasts eat only soybean meal which, moreover, takes kilometers after kilometers to get to their destination“. In the farms of the Polizzi family the pigs are fed with zero kilometer products, specifically barley and field beans, produced by local producers. “All this allows us to obtain a meat with a unique aroma and taste. Furthermore, none of the pigs we raise are sold to third parties; we slaughter them, we process the meats and they will be the same ones that will fill the sandwiches“.
Porcobrado: e-commerce and the various offices
Before getting inside the sandwich, the meat is marinated, smoked and cooked at a low temperature in a barbecue (in total, over 100 hours of processing!). It is then frayed, cut into pieces or thin slices and only then placed between the two slices of Panel (in turn made with Verna wheat flouran ancient Tuscan stone ground wheat, matured with mother yeast). Homemade sauces complete the sandwich. Once the product has been developed, in 2016 the project kicks off: in the beginning it was a food truck, today it has become five. I then arrived awardslike participation in the contest of the best Italian street food that makes him win the award for best sandwich in Europe.
In the 2018then, it is the turn of the first store in Milan and in 2020 the opening to Florence (later inaugurated). What happened that year we know all too well, but the pandemic did not stop Polizzi and his team who gave life to the Porcobrado boxa box that can be purchased online through the Porcobrado shop that arrives home in 24 hours: inside the box there are bread packaged in a protected atmosphere, sauces in jars and vacuum-packed cooked meat to be regenerated in boiling water. From April 2020 to today, over 50 thousand boxes have been soldnumbers that have allowed e-commerce to be launched in England in recent months.
Porcobrado in Rome
The last stop (for now) is the Rome officewhich, in addition to Angelo Polezzi, has three friends and now business partners, Emanuele Masini, Rossella Barranca and Claudio Ceravolo. The idea of opening Porcobrado in Rome was born around a table: “We were at Emanuele’s house in the countryside – says Rossella -. It was shortly after the first lockdown and we were enjoying a Porcobrado sandwich. From the first bite we immediately thought that such a good sandwich could not be missing in Rome!“. The place is small but with enough space to stop and eat, even if the soul of Porcobrado is purely street food. In addition to the sandwich (9 euros), there are sauces – the one with red onion or jalapeno, the Chianti and Valdichiana aglione sauce – to which is added for this new headquarters that cheese and pepper. To complete the proposal, crushed with cured meats and Porcilla beer.
Porcobrado Rome. Via Urbana 31, Rome. tel. 06 3397 8398. Site. Facebook. Instagram
Open every day, closed on Mondays