A panzerotto is a handheld half-moon shaped pocket of dough filled with any number of sweet and savory ingredients and delicately fried until golden. Vittoria Lattanzio, 26-year-old from Apulia, graduated as Pizzaiolo and specialized in traditional Panzerotteria, before deciding, with her husband Pasquale De Ruvo, to bring the pleasure of this traditional Apulian street-food to New York.
At 235 Smith St. in Brooklyn they founded the perfect location to create ‘Panzerotti Bites‘, the concept restaurant and takeaway that offers a menu of, miraculously grease-less, traditional panzerotti – stuffed with tomato pulp, fresh mozzarella and oregano – along with unique ones filled with smoked salmon, avocado, cream cheese and sesame seed, their Tartufo Panzerotto – with mozzarella, porcini mushrooms and black truffle oil -, and sweet panzerotti with ricotta and hazelnut spread. All of them can be enjoyed in the welcoming atmosphere of Southern Italian that characterizes the couple’s restaurant, or it can be take away as handy street-food. Lattanzio said: “We wanted to create a hospitable and rustic atmosphere, to make the Apulians in New York feel at home and to make Americans feel the emotion of being closer to Apulia.”
The handmade panzerotti are made with well-matured and leavened dough, for a total of 53 hours, so as to be soft and digestible and 80% of the products used come directly from Apulia, including the flour, the Margherita di Savoia salt, the extra virgin olive oil, the tomato sauce, and even tomatoes in oil. Moreover, every week they offer alternative dough mixtures, such as those with cocoa or coffee for sweet panzerotti, or turmeric or nettle for savory ones.
Ilona Catani Scarlett