Best Bite: Rome, January 2024

SPAGHETTI. SANDWICH.

When I’m on vacation, I seek out food the way most people seek out monuments. Whether in Napa or Naples, I plan my days around meals, and like to leave plenty of time to walk around a city, wander into bakeries, and taste things that are new to me.

While trips are often filled with lots of great food experiences, I’ve found that there’s usually one standout—a bite that stays with me long after I’m done eating. And so, I present to you Best Bite, a series where I’ll dive into a singular memorable dish—the one thing I tell my friends they have to try.

First up, from my recent trip to Rome, the spaghetti-filled pizza al taglio from Panificio Bonci.

It was 1pm in Rome. My family and I had walked to Panificio Bonci in Prati for a pre-lunch snack (as one does). The brains behind this institution, Gabriele Bonci, has become known as the Michelangelo of pizza. His paint? Pizza al taglio, Roman-style pies baked in long rectangular trays, cut into squares with scissors, and sold by weight.

Bonci has another shop nearby, called Pizzarium, as well as two locations in Chicago. But this one—a tiny place on Via Trionfale that you might walk right by if you didn’t know to look—has breads, pastries, and a display case filled with all sorts of different pizzas. Some are more traditional, like one brushed with tomato sauce and sprinkled with oregano. Others showcase Bonci’s characteristic creativity, whether that’s a topping of scrambled eggs and fried zucchini or a wild mix of fresh raspberries, roasted potatoes, goat cheese, and mint.

There’s so much to choose from.

I tapped my pointer finger against the glass and asked, “What’s that one?”

“Spaghetti inside,” the man behind the counter said. My eyes widened and I looked at my brother, who’d had the exact same reaction.

“One of those too, please.”

The flavor itself was perfect (tangy bread, sweet sauce), but that was a given. This bite of what I’m dubbing Bonci’s “Spaghetti Sandwich” was so good because of something else: texture.

It was as if Bonci had baked a Margherita pizza, sliced it in half length-wise, stuffed the middle with spaghetti pomodoro, then put it back in the oven. The bottom, soaked in olive oil, was crunchy. The top, covered in charred mozzarella, had this under-baked quality to it, a squish reminiscent of Stouffer’s pizza bread. When you ate the top and bottom together, along with the tomato sauce-smothered pasta in between…that bite was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It was crispy and fluffy and chewy and melty all at the same time.

When Anthony Bourdain visited Pizzarium Bonci in his 2011 show The Layover, he held up a slice topped with fresh mozzarella and zucchini flowers, looked right into the camera, and said, “Your life would be so much better if you had this right now.”

He was right.