It might sound surprising to New Orleanians to hear someone say that they long for an Italian sandwich but can’t seem to find one here. After all, the 504 is awash in rich Italian heritage. We’re the town that invented the muffuletta. But for Tara Francolini, a New Jersey native and veteran of the local service industry, a proper “East Coast Italian sandwich” didn’t really exist in the Crescent City. Not yet.
“I realized that it was something that was close to me, and it was something that I really missed,” Francolini said. “I definitely took it for granted when I was up north, where there are so many of these Italian delis. There are a dozen of them every few blocks, and everyone has their own neighborhood deli that they love for one reason or another. It was a cool discovery for me, because I do love sandwiches, and I realized that there wasn’t something like this down here.”
Thus began a years-long project for Tara: Opening a quintessential New Jersey-style deli right in the heart of Uptown New Orleans. But she knew the execution needed to be perfect. So she partnered with her friend, chef Cesar Nunez, to hammer out all the intricate details of the concept before even beginning to think about opening. To start, Francolini brought Nunez to New York for research and development. And that, of course, meant eating a lot of sandwiches.
“In one day, I think we ate like eight or nine different sandwiches,” she said. “There were like 24 spots on my list. By the time we got to five – and we were eating full sandwiches here – you feel like you just want to die. We were able to do a lot in the Bleecker area, Soho and the West Village, and then up to Arthur Ave. in the Bronx, looking at all of their menus for inspiration and seeing what seemed to work and different styles of service. That really helped a lot.”
Like many modern New Orleans aspiring restaurateurs, Francolini and Nunez decided to launch their deli idea as a pop-up as they searched for a brick-and-mortar location to call home. Francolini’s officially started serving their Italian sandwiches at Company Burger (“Adam Biderman really saved us,” Tara said), and then at Rabbit’s Foot, where they resided for six months on Monday and Tuesday nights. Given New Orleanians’ deep and abiding love of food – especially sandwiches – their concept was all but a first-pitch home run.
“It went really well and ended up being way busier than I ever expected,” Francolini said. “It was wild. I thought ‘Well, I guess I have to focus on this,’ and it ended up being great. Because if we had opened in New Orleans and not had those popups, it would’ve been an absolute disaster. Just working out little kinks and workshopping recipes, finding out what people were interested in, and what they weren’t interested in.”
Finally, after many months of painstaking research, menu testing and pop-up service, Francolini’s officially opened in their own cozy, modern space on Tchoupitoulas Street this past summer. Unsurprisingly, New Orleanians lined up down the street to get their Italian sandwich fix right out of the gate. What they found was something deeply familiar and also refreshingly novel to them at the same time, executed with an attention to detail that even Francolini admits borders on obsessive.
So what, in Tara’s mind, makes the ideal Italian sandwich? First and perhaps most critically, is the bread. It took being rejected by more than twenty bakeries, creating the recipe herself, and finally partnering with Ayu Bakehouse to fill their need for the quintessential Italian sandwich loaf, which is “dense, but still moist” and an exterior that straddles the line between crusty and flaky. “And the bottom had to have either semolina or cornmeal, which gave it that grittiness which was so traditional growing up, and something that I thought was a really unique factor.”
And then, of course, comes the meat, shaved obsessively thin. “In my mind that’s a dealbreaker right there,” Tara said. “Getting meat that’s thinly sliced totally changes the mouthfeel of a sandwich. It also changes the volume of it. If you have five ounces of meat but it’s thick, you really only have three slices. If you have five ounces of meat that’s really thinly sliced, you can have forty slices of it, and it’s just going to be so much better.”
Finally, there’s the acid factor. “We use pepperoncini,” noted Tara. You chop them up really fine, and it permeates through all the fattiness and saltiness. It elevates it to that next level and brings out all of the different flavors.”
You’ll find all of these elements and more on the carefully curated menu at Francolini’s, from their Italian sandwich, appropriately dubbed “The Italian,” piled high with prosciutto cotto, mortadella, hot capicola, genoa salami, sharp provolone, pepperoncini, red onions, shredded lettuce and house vinaigrette to “The Smoltz,” which sports rare roast beef, fontina cheese, horseradish aioli and fresh dill. Fried chicken cutlets are also a standout, something that Francolini craved from her youth but simply couldn’t find on New Orleans sandwiches. The “Niccolo,” named after Tara’s favorite neighborhood deli growing up, features a uniquely wonderful combination of hot cutlets with fresh mozzarella, garlicky broccoli rabe and roasted red peppers.
Francolini’s well-warranted early success seems surreal to its founder and namesake. “It feels like an out-of-body experience,” she says. Still, the Jersey girl remains grateful for her adopted hometown, which has embraced the new East Coast-style deli with open arms. “I would never have opened a restaurant in any other city,” she said. “It’s been really cool to see how well received it’s been, and how even people who were apprehensive of it really want a new small business to do well. Here, people genuinely care. And that’s awesome.”
Goodenough Supper Club
If you were crestfallen when Uptown culinary gem Carrollton Market shuttered its doors permanently back in 2021, you’re not alone. Despite the restaurant’s sad closing, Chef Jason Goodenough refused to be down for the count. In recent months, Goodenough has been delighting Crescent City gastronomes with a once-monthly, 30-seat, five-course popup dinner, appropriately titled the “Goodenough Supper Club.” Previous dinners have included concepts like “Across the Pond,” which featured modern takes on British fare, including foie gras with crumpets, and oxtail and Stilton pie, as well as another titled “Artsy,” which took place in Alex Beard’s gallery and included souvenir menus designed by the artist himself.
“It’s been awesome experimenting,” Goodenough said. “I really missed having the opportunity to be creative and do some more upscale cooking.” As for November’s menu, “It’s going to be the first thing we’ve done with fall ingredients, a little bit heartier than summertime. I think it’ll be a really good one!”
For more info, check out @goodenoughsupperclub on Instagram, and tickets are available on the website Tock. If you’ve ever had the singular joy of experiencing the chef’s signature “Oysters Goodenough,” you know you’ll want to do that tout de suite!
About the Owner
Tara Francolini was born and raised in New Jersey, into an Italian family that adored the culinary arts. She landed in New Orleans after years hopping around the country and globe working as a server and managing bars and restaurants. After stints at Longway Tavern – where she met her now co-owner and chef/consultant Cesar Nunez – and Blue Oak, Francolini began working to realize her dream of bringing a classic Italian deli to the Crescent City. Francolini’s opened Uptown in July of 2023 and expertly filled a hole in the New Orleans dining scene that most didn’t know existed. But the best part, she says, is having a taste of home at her fingertips. “Finally,” she declared, “I don’t have to fly to New York anymore just to get a chicken cutlet sandwich. That was getting expensive!”
