Overview:
Chef and owner of new sandwich shop da Toscano Porchetta Shop, Michael Toscano, wants guests to grab great sandwiches — and have an excellent experience while they’re at it.
Chef and owner of new sandwich shop da Toscano Porchetta Shop, Michael Toscano, wants guests to grab great sandwiches — and have an excellent experience while they’re at it.
“We didn’t just do a deli, we did something where you see the pigs are roasting right now. You see the prime rib going,” he said, describing the sensory experience that is ordering a sandwich at the Porchetta Shop. “You see the stack of focaccia. And then you see us pulling the whole sheets out.”
From steaming fresh focaccia to roasting pigs, the ingredients come first at this new downtown sandwich shop on President Street, where chef Toscano and his wife and business partner, Caitlin, are serving up a variety of sandwiches, sides and beverages from morning until night, Monday through Friday.
“I’ve never tried so hard to stay ahead and just not be able to stay ahead,” laughed Toscano. Since opening mid-December, da Toscano Porchetta Shop has been, well, crushing it. “We’re crazy busy,” said Toscano, who added that the grab-and-go restaurant is working just as, if not better, than he’d envisioned.
Standing room only, the Porchetta Shop is designed like all-day cafes Toscano and his wife have frequented on their travels abroad. While many people come through during the bustling lunch hour to grab a sandwich to go, there’s space for hanging out with your food, too.
You can order a drink — hello, classic Venetian spritz — and stand at the community countertop while chowing down on a porcini rubbed prime rib sandwich, or perhaps a hot soppressata.
The shop opens at 8 a.m., serving up breakfast sandwiches, including what the menu labels Toscano’s “childhood favorites,” like the chorizo and egg sandwich made with Mexican chorizo, scrambled eggs and refried beans. Toscano wanted to offer “top-notch coffee,” too, and the shop proudly boasts a La Marzocco espresso machine and serves up Lavazza espresso.
The shop reflects the attention to detail that Toscano first brought to Charleston in 2016, when he opened Le Farfalle. “We were one of the first ones to charge for bread,” he said of Le Farfalle’s house-made focaccia. “We were trying to deliver fresh, beautiful bread, not just some table bread, but something to start the experience.” Toscano said some customers balked at paying for bread at first; Le Farfalle now sells out of focaccia every night.
“There’s such a following for that. We decided to build this place where everything goes on focaccia,” Toscano said.
Pig out
While the bread is certainly special, it’s the pork from Tank Jackson’s Holy City Hogs that really steals the show at the Porchetta Shop.
Toscano said the collaboration with Jackson is a win-win for both parties when it comes to sourcing meat for the shop’s signature sandwich. Toscano makes his porchetta like they do in Italy, cutting meat from an entire deboned pig, one that’s traditionally smaller than a full-size hog.
Rather than losing money on small pigs who require as much food as bigger ones, Jackson sells them to Toscano specifically for his porchetta.
Toscano learned whole animal butchery at Dickson’s Farmstand in Chelsea Market. He would go on his days off from work as a sous chef at Mario Batali’s former restaurant Babbo in New York City.
In addition to years of breaking down whole hogs, Toscano has been perfecting porchetta, too, serving it up in a manner of ways, including as a dish at his fine dining Italian establishment, da Toscano, in New York City.
Toscano still travels between New York and Charleston, spending time at each of his three restaurants. The constant flux doesn’t faze him, though. Once he steps into whatever establishment he’s visiting, he can meet its energy. “The space depicts how it should feel,” he said, with the cozy 60 seats at da Toscano oozing “sexiness” and the openness of Le Farfalle offering something more casual that “still feels elegant.”
As for the Porchetta Shop? Toscano best described it as “bustling.” Moving his arms around the small, President Street space, though, his description also suggested a sort of symphony — organized chaos that ends in paper-wrapped sandwiches.
“At lunch it’s bustling, and we’re crazy busy. It’s what we wanted,” Toscano said. “That’s the vision we have, where this isn’t exactly what we saw in Italy, but it’s a combination of multiple different experiences that we put together. And we think it’s fun.”
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