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La Bella Sangweech
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Although I grew up with two Jewish bubbes, which gave me VIP access to home-baked strudel and challah, after talking to Angie Russo and Jess Anelli, co-owners of La Bella Sangweech, an Italian sandwich shop on College, I’m wondering if I got shortchanged.
In some respects, Russo and Anelli grew up worlds apart; Russo in Toronto’s Corso Italia and Anelli in Sault Ste. Marie. But sealing their connection is the fact that both were raised with their nonnas nearby.
One set of Russo’s grandparents lived four blocks away while another resided within biking distance, at Bloor and Ossington.
Even so, Anelli had the edge on Russo – her maternal nonna lived right next door.
In both cases, the upshot was a non-stop parade of homemade Italian lunches, after-school snacks and blow-out holiday banquets, all executed with grandmotherly love and sprezzatura. Yet despite the lasagnas and the tiramisus, what both Russo and Anelli remember most, with unbridled, grin-inducing, eyes-tearing-up nostalgia, is their nonnas’ mortadella sandwiches…
“There’s a lot of stigma around mort,” admits Anelli, referring to what some view as the Poor Man’s cold cut by its single syllable moniker. “But in truth, it’s the best thing ever.
Russo chimes in enthusiastically: “It’s creamy. It’s rich. It’s fatty. It’s sweet. It’s everything!
“There’s a reason why it was Anthony Bourdain’s favourite sandwich.” adds Anelli, whose nonna’s version was “just bread and a hefty portion of mortadella, nothing crazy.”
“But that was her ‘bella sangweech,’ or beautiful sandwich,” she explains, “sangweech” being the Italianized version of sandwich.
It was fed by such comforting culinary memories that Anelli and Russo teamed up to open La Bella Sangweech, which pays homage to their nonnas (and all nonnas) by putting a modern yet reverent spin on robust sandwiches made with classic Italian ingredients.
While Russo has an extensive background in hospitality, Anelli works in the marketing department of Holt Renfrew. The two first met when they were introduced by Russo’s best friend and roommate who, like Anelli, hailed from Sault Ste. Marie. In turn, Anelli introduced Russo to her partner, Bryan Nunez, who was opening a bar in The Junction, Hush Hush, and needed some help.
Following the pandemic, Nunez moved Hush Hush to College and then decided to open another bar in the neighbourhood. The new cocktail club, Last Call, came with a vacant storefront. When Nunez pressed Anelli to transform her long-held dream of opening a sandwich shop into a reality, she agreed to take the plunge – but only if Russo took it with her.
Russo happily signed on and the two women got to work, doing most of the renovations themselves, building the tiled sandwich counter that dominates the compact shop and painting the walls in La Bella Sangweech’s cheery signature colours of pink (mortadella!) and red (capicola!).
The real hard labour began when the partners sat down to create the sandwiches. Despite constant shuttling back and forth between each other’s homes, the long, arduous process saw them literally putting on pounds as they taste-tested their way towards the most bellissima sangweeches of them all.
“We were going to the grocery store and pissing off the deli ladies by saying ‘I just want five slices of every meat you have,’ then grabbing every kind of condiment off the shelves,” recalls Russo, admitting that, at the outset, there was a lot of (delicious) trial and error. “We wanted to see how flavours meshed and what feelings they created. Which flavours reminded us of our childhoods? Which flavours did we want to put out in the world?”
Although the goal was to keep the sandwiches unfussy, traditional and Italian, there also was a desire to go where no sando italiano had gone before. “We had very simple sandwiches growing up,” stresses Anelli. “Just the mort on a bun, which is really good because mort has so many flavour profiles. But we also pushed ourselves, asking what if we went one step further... adding creamy stracciatella, peppery arugula, and a rich truffle crema to really elevate that mort sandwich?”
The mouthwatering incarnation of this “one step further” is La Mortadella di Fame, one of six finalists that made it onto the minimalist menu of maximalist sandwiches. A play on “morte de fama,” an expression used to describe someone obsessed with money – the sandwich’s apt tagline is that it’s “rich in flavour” – it’s one of several items whose name inspired the ingredients.
Another is La Mangiacake, “mangiacake” being a teasingly affectionate term for non-Italian Canadians (purportedly because, traditionally, they always showed up to functions bearing cake). The sandwich lives up to its gringo-cred by featuring the New World likes of ham, turkey and crunchy iceberg lettuce, layered with more piquant and pungent Italian salami, smoked provolone tomatoes and pepperoncini.
Like all bella sangweeches, the fixings are beautifully layered onto thick slices of fluffy foccaccia, delivered daily from the Riviera bakery two doors down. Anelli and Russo not only carefully source all their own ingredients – favouring quality Italian brands such as San Daniele and Bella Casara – but they also do their own shopping and stock runs.
As in Italy, meats are cut to a papery thinness, eschewing excessive chewiness in favour of melt-in-your-mouthiness. Instead of being unceremoniously piled on or slapped down, they’re arranged in delicate folds that resemble haute-couture ruching.
All La Bella Sangweech sandwiches are wonderfully hefty, but perhaps none are as gorgeously daunting as La Big Bella, the fully-loaded signature sandwich “that has pretty much everything you can think of on it.” If your thoughts run to mortadella along with hot soppressata, prosciutto, capicola, provolone, mozzarella and iceberg lettuce, you’ll be in Sandwich Heaven. Adding an extra shot of transcendence is a robust smear of briny olive salad and Bella sauce, a zingy house-made honey-Dijon vinaigrette that accompanies many of the sandwiches.
Like all six sandwiches, La Bella has a lot of personality. However, she’s no rival for La Godmother. A sandwich that would intimidate Don Corleone himself, it features capicola, hot soppressata, and salami along with a holy tri-coloured trinity of stracciatella, sun-dried tomatoes, and arugula.
“She’s in a league of her own. The creamy stracc, the spicy sopressata, the mild capicola, the sun-dried tomatoes marinated in their own oil. It’s a combination you wouldn’t usually see and the flavours just work really well and uniquely,” confesses Russo, with unconcealed pride, noting that all of the sangweeches respond to the pronouns “she” and “her” (La Bella Sangweech’s logo is a cheeky pin-up sandwich named “Bella”).
Despite the partners’ die-hard devotion to mort, the meat most represented on the sangweech menu is capicola. Although it plays a supporting role in two sandwiches, it pulls off an exceptionally meaty star turn in La Gabagool, whose very name – an Italian-American slang expression for capicola immortalized by none other than eminent Jersey sandwich connoisseur Tony Soprano– says it all.
In addition to (as the menu accurately states) “capicola, capicola, and more capicola,” La Gabagool also layers on provolone, iceberg lettuce and roasted red peppers, a staple of Anelli’s nonna, who used to grill them on her backyard barbecue, infusing the entire neighbourhood with their smoky perfume.
Although the majority of La Bella Sangweech’s offerings worship at the altar of meat, those in search of something lighter and leafier will find succour and sustenance in La Fresca. A deconstructed Caprese salad, La Fresca features mozzarella, tomatoes, arugula and fresh basil on a focaccia slathered in creamy pesto and spritzed with a zesty balsamic glaze.
Since La Bella Sangweech opened in December, Anelli and Russo have had their hands happily full tending to the menu’s six distinctive and vibrant personalities. But there are plans in the works to both tweak the classic sextet while inviting in some newcomers, including hot options.
The partners are also excited about expanding their drinks offerings, currently limited to flavoured Pellegrino and San Benedetto sparkling water. A line of house-made Italian sodas is in the works and expect to enjoy iced cafe cremas by the time summer rolls around.
By then, there will be a sidewalk patio with tables and chairs (glass doors open onto College) along with alcove seating (currently the shop is take-out only). As for the old-school freezer door at the back of the shop, it unsuspectingly leads into the Last Call, whose food program will be designed by Anelli and Russo.
“We want to evolve and switch things up” declares Anelli about the partners’ myriad plans for the future, at the same time stressing, “we don’t want to put out anything we’re not proud of... or that our nonnas wouldn’t be proud of.”
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