Owner Jay Jerrier’s Neapolitan pizzas get all the attention. (We gave them a Best of Big D last month.) I love his pies, but I go back for the sandwiches served on bread made each morning in the restaurant’s wood-burning oven. The best of the lot is Jerrier’s take on the Cuban. It’s a magnificent mess of tender Berkshire pork shoulder braised with beer and onions; layered with prosciutto, baby Swiss cheese, and horseradish pickles; and piled on puffy, hot bread spread with spicy mustard and Calabrian chile aioli. As soon as the sandwich was set in front of me, I asked the waitress for a to-go carton. Before she returned, I’d already eaten the whole thing. I would have grabbed the other half of my friend’s sausage and pepper sandwich if she hadn’t built a wall between our two plates with her purse. Since I was paying, she tore off a piece for me to taste. Ah, the distinctive flavor of Jimmy’s slightly spicy sausage links covered with roasted red and green peppers, onion, and extra-sharp provolone cheese, all doused in a house-made sugo, a traditional red sauce made from San Marzano tomatoes. If you’re a burrata cheese freak, make like I did and go face down on the 4-ounce soft pillow of burrata that sits atop a mound of spiky rapini leaves dressed in extra virgin olive oil.
For more information on Cane Rosso, visit our restaurant guide.