It’s the kind of food that you have to stand up to eat, leaning over as you take a bite, its contents spilling out in front of you. The Italian beef sandwich may be a messy meal, but it’s a flavorful one. In recent years, the popular FX show The Bear has introduced the sandwich to a broader audience. But the Italian beef sandwich is a decidedly Chicago food tradition, rooted in Italian-American immigrants who once lived and worked on Taylor Street.
An Italian beef sandwich consists of thin cuts of seasoned beef (the type of cut may vary), roasted slowly in beef stock, sliced thin, and left to soak in the juices in which it was cooked. It’s then piled high on springy white bread, like French bread or an Italian roll. Depending on your preference, you can top it with peppers or with a spicy vegetable relish called giardiniera, which typically contains a briny mix of peppers, celery, cauliflower, and carrots packed in vinegar and oil. Some people order the sandwich “wet” (topped with additional juices) or “dipped” (fully submerged in the juices).
So where did this mountainous mouthful of a sandwich come from? A lot of people take credit for its invention, but no single story has been proven definitively.
“Italian beef is so simple. I'm not sure that there is such a thing as someone who invented Italian beef,” food journalist Michael Gebert told Chicago Stories. “So there are various theories and they could all be true at the same time.”
One such theory comes from popular spot Al’s Beef. As the company tells it, the story begins near the end of World War I, when Italian-American street peddler Anthony Ferreri began selling thin cuts of beef on a sandwich, selling it for weddings and other gatherings around Chicago. Fast forward a couple of decades, and Anthony’s son, Al, wanted to use his dad’s sandwich shop as a front with some of the bookie pals he met in prison. They opened Al’s Bar B-Q in Little Italy, but the sandwiches were so popular that he made it into a legitimate business.
While others also claim to be the inventors of Italian beef, one common thread emerges. It’s likely that it began as an Italian-American wedding tradition. According to The Chicago Food Encyclopedia, Italian-American immigrant families served these affordable beef sandwiches at Depression-era “peanut weddings,” where working class families “would rent halls and supply their own food for the event, commonly including roasted peanuts and sandwiches filled with slices of wet-roasted beef.” Italian beef uses more affordable cuts of meat, such as inside round, eye of round, or chuck. Plus, it’s sliced thin, making it easier to feed more people for such a gathering.
It’s not hard to find an Italian beef in and around Chicago today. Beside’s Al’s, you can find the sandwich at Mr. Beef (where parts of The Bear have been filmed) in River North, Portillo’s or Pop’s at various locations around Chicago and the suburbs, beloved local spot Johnnie’s in Elmwood Park, Buona Beef, and many more.
