There are plenty of Italian sandwiches. But this Kansas City deli makes the best one

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Imagine a perfect cloud of mozzarella. It’s light and creamy, a heavenly raft for a trio of Italian meats to float on into your mouth.

I had forgotten how good this sandwich is — and in the days leading up to eating it for the first time in years I was beginning to doubt my selection of it for this column. You can get an Italian sandwich anywhere, right?

But you can’t get this Italian sandwich anywhere. This one’s special.

Carollo’s Grocery & Deli started as a single butcher stall in the City Market in late 1988 — back when the market was only open on the weekends. Owner Mike Carollo opened the business with his brother, Frank, whom Mike describes as “the quiet one.” They opened the grocery and deli there the following year.

Now, Carollo’s is a fixture of the market, where seven days a week you can find delicious gelato, cannolis, sausages and Italian wines.

And, of course, sandwiches.

During my visit on an August afternoon, I selected the Napolitano, the first item on the sandwich menu and the store’s No. 1 seller.

“We have true Italian meats in there,” Carollo told me — prosciutto, capocollo and salami, all of which crossed an ocean to get to you.

The Carollo family immigrated to the U.S. from Sicily in 1972. And the store, which is dotted with Sicilian flags and Italian soccer banners, emphasizes that continued connection with the old country through the products on the shelves.

“We have more imported goods here than any other place in Kansas City,” Carollo said.

The Napolitano is an old standby for me. I used to live a five-minute walk from City Market and would often wander into Carollo’s, at 9 E. Third St., and order it. But being a cheapskate I would usually opt for the provolone and forgo paying the extra $3 for the fresh mozzarella. But on this occasion since I was on The Star’s dime, I decided to treat myself.

My God, what a cheese! It transforms a great sandwich into a masterpiece. If you take nothing else from this column, please take this to heart: Get the mozz. Even with the extra cost, your sandwich will be less than $12 before tax, a small price to pay for paradise.

Along with the cheese and meats, the sandwich consists of fresh bread drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, lettuce, tomato and giardiniera — pickled peppers and other veggies. When I told Carollo that my mother’s family hails from Calabria (the bottom of the boot), he made sure my sandwich got the spicy giardiniera. The flavors play off one another beautifully.

There’s an episode of “30 Rock” in which Liz Lemon opines that the sandwich unites humanity because “all anyone really wants in this life is to sit in peace and eat a sandwich.”

Lemon would be happy at Carollo’s.

Like Liz Lemon — and her creator Tina Fey — I grew up in the Philadelphia area, where eating hoagies is a birthright.

When I was a teenager I worked in a deli where our biggest seller was also Italian sandwiches. My hands would smell like capocollo after a day on the slicer. I experienced the adrenaline jolt of a lunch rush, which would later prepare me to handle breaking news. I often say that if my journalism career goes bust, I’ll just go back to making sandwiches.

Places like this have long been a source of comfort for me as I’ve moved around the country. I currently live in Washington, D.C., where I’ve found a reliable Italian deli to buy sandwiches, but I have to admit it pales in comparison to Carollo’s.

In any city, I always want to know where I can find the best sandwich. I asked Carollo whether he considers the Napolitano to be the best in Kansas City and he did not hesitate.

“I do,” he said. “And not only me but the people, the customer says that.”

As I devoured my sandwich, I couldn’t disagree.

This story was originally published August 22, 2023 at 5:30 AM.

Bryan Lowry

The Kansas City Star

Bryan Lowry was politics editor for The Kansas City Star until 2023. Lowry reported from the Kansas statehouse, Congress and the White House in a variety of roles for McClatchy since 2014 for The Star and its sister papers, The Wichita Eagle and The Miami Herald. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize as part of The Star’s team that investigated government secrecy in Kansas in 2017.