All'Antico Vinaio
La Favolosa is salame toscana under pecorino cream, artichoke cream and spicy eggplant. It costs $21 on schiacciata at the East 60th Street shop.4 Tommaso Mazzanti built that sandwich in Florence.3
Why go
The Mazzanti family have run All'Antico Vinaio in Florence since 1991.3 Tommaso joined in 2014 and opened four more shops with them.3 He was born in Bagno a Ripoli, outside the city, and came in out of hotel school.3 The bread is schiacciata, thin and crusty. The whole menu is sandwiches on it.1
Kenny Yang reviewed the Eighth Avenue shop for The Infatuation at 7.9.1 The prosciutto, porchetta and mortadella are what you would expect. Mazzanti's shops spread pecorino, truffle, pistachio and nduja creams. Yang picked those out as the unusual part.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: La Favolosa, $21. It is the one Mazzanti is known for. The artichoke cream makes it.34
- Order: La Paradiso, $19, mortadella with stracciatella, pistachio cream and pistachios.4
- Order: La Toscana, $20. Pecorino straight, with truffle honey over the salame.4
- Avoid: ordering one each unless you are both hungry. The shop prints La Paradiso at 1,440 calories.4
What locals & experts say
- Kenny Yang, in The Infatuation (22 August 2022):
The sandwiches are huge, and once you try one, you'll want to try the rest.
1 - Anna Rahmanan, Time Out New York's senior national news editor, dating the doors on 15 February 2024: the Eighth Avenue shop came first in 2021, then Sullivan Street in 2022,
and the other at 36 East 60th Street by Park Avenue on the Upper East Side just last summer.
2
Good to know
- The door: other shops carry the name around Manhattan. This one is 36 East 60th Street, by Park Avenue, and it trades every day.42
- To drink: wine by the glass from $12, spritzes at $14 and a Peroni at $7.4
- The cheap end: La Caprese is $15 and The Veggie and La Broadway are $16.4
Verdict
could-visit — Counter service and no booking, so this is lunch and not a night out. I would order a salami build over anything on the board with turkey in it.