Italian street food, straight from Naples Italy. Piadinas, sfincione, ravazzate and golden brown porchetta greet customers at Cafe Italia, which opened last month in south Fort Myers.
Owner Michele Romano is from Naples, Italy, and attended culinary...
Italian street food, straight from Naples Italy. Piadinas, sfincione, ravazzate and golden brown porchetta greet customers at Cafe Italia, which opened last month in south Fort Myers.
Owner Michele Romano is from Naples, Italy, and attended culinary school prior to working in Italy and Europe. "I've been cooking for 30 years," Romano explained. "At my age, I wanted to do something simple."
Having a menu that concentrates on take-away foods allows Romano to spend evenings and weekends with his family. "This will be my first Christmas at home," he said.
Romano describes his cuisine as Italian street food. There are familiar items, like mini pizza margherita, and calzone, prepared the way Romano learned to make it in Naples, stuffed with ham and mozzarella. Romano happily explains his items to customers, like Pizza Parigina, a Neapolitan-style sliced pizza topped with homemade mozzarella, Italian ham and then topped with a layer of puff pastry.
Romano's specialty is porchetta, a dish that is Roman in origin. Pork loin is stuffed with pancetta, lemon zest, oregano, lemon juice and other herbs, then cooked using the sous-vide method. Romano finishes the porchetta in the oven to crisp the skin to a golden brown. The porchetta sub features the thinly sliced porchetta topped with Romano's oven roasted tomatoes, caramelized onions, romaine lettuce, Parmesan cheese, lemon confit and salsa verde.
There are four different piadinas, homemade flatbread sandwiches, on the menu and two feature Romano's homemade mozzarella. The Piadina Parma is a folded flatbread stuffed with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, arugula and basil pesto, and the Piadina Napoli includes soppressata, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and a tomato basil oil.
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