Montaditos are open-faced sandwiches and an essential tapa in Spain. Although there is no set list of ingredients, montaditos are always made with bread slices, typically from a thin elongated bread similar to a baguette. The toppings are incredibly versatile and may include anything from smoked meat, chorizo sausages, jamóns, various types of cheese, pickled vegetables, anchovies, as well as other types of seafood.
The combinations are seemingly endless, and there are no set rules which toppings to use and how to combine them. It is believed that montaditos were the first type of sandwiches in Spain, dating back to fifteen or sixteenth century. The name montadito is believed to stem from the word montar, meaning to mount—as a reference to all the toppings that are mounted on top of each bread slice.
MOST ICONIC Montadito
View moreBocadillos or bocatas are Spanish sandwiches made with Spanish-style baguettes known as barra de pan, unlike regular sandwiches which are made with modern white bread, known as pan de molde in Spain. The most common fillings for bocadillos include meat, cheese, tuna, omelets, jamón, or chorizo sausages.
The Spanish typically don't add onions, mayonnaise, pickles, or lettuce to bocadillos, but the bread is sometimes rubbed with halved tomatoes or olive oil. Due to the popularity of these sandwiches, the fillings vary from one region to another – omelet bocadillos are usually eaten for breakfast or as an afternoon snack and include eggs, cheese, beans, peppers, and potatoes; meat-based bocadillos are often made with chicken, beef, pork, horse, or goat; and fish bocadillos often include cuttlefish, sardines, and squid.
VARIATIONS OF Bocadillos
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View moreTramezzino is a popular Italian triangular sandwich made with chewy, crustless white bread and various fillings such as mayonnaise, tuna, prosciutto, and cheese. It is believed that the first tramezzino was invented in 1925 at Caffè Mulassano in Turin.
It soon became incredibly popular, especially in Venice, where it's often enjoyed with a glass of Spritz. Today, there are numerous varieties of tramezzini, and they can be found in cafés throughout Italy, although pre-packed varieties that can be bought in supermarkets are also quite common.
VARIATIONS OF Tramezzino
MOST ICONIC Tramezzino
View moreMAIN INGREDIENTS
Panuozzo di Gragnano is an Italian sandwich, a sort of large oval-shaped bread or panino that can be filled with various ingredients. It was in 1983, in a small town near Naples called Gragnano, that this specialty was created by Giuseppe Mascolo, whose family has been the exclusive owner of the registered trademark Panuozzo since 1996.
Made with simple pizza dough, the bread is baked in a wood-fired pizza oven, and it is then sliced lengthwise before all the desired ingredients are tucked inside. Then comes the final touch - a second, brief time spent in the oven - a step which gives the bread its distinctive crispy exterior and allows for the filling to blend perfectly with the bread.
Panonta is a multi-layered sandwich that’s one mammoth of a meal given it’s made with a large loaf of homemade bread, which is sliced, then brushed with bacon grease or lard, and layered with various ingredients, typically fried bacon, sausages, peppers, frittata, grated cheese, garlic, and parsley.
The sandwich is present in Abruzzo, Molise, and parts of Lazio, while the name comes from the phrase pane unto, meaning greased bread. It was created for practical reasons so that shepherds and farmers had something easy to carry that could sustain them while working long and hard in the mountains or the countryside.
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