You haven’t lived until you’ve eaten this spicy vodka chicken cotoletta panuozzo

When we launched Sandwich Watch in February 2024, a reader wrote in and said: “Sliced bread is what defines a sandwich, not a bread roll.”

“Sorry not sorry Colin N,” I replied the following month when profiling Kosta’s chicken schnitty sandwich – still one of the city’s greatest sangas and, shock horror, made on a round bun.

“As far as we see it, a sandwich can come on a roll, a bun, in a pita, on one piece of bread, and be served from breakfast through to dinner. Damn, even a hot dog is a sandwich. There’s one exception to this rule, though: burgers are definitely not sandwiches.”

I say all of this because I would now like to go on the record and add panuozzo to that list: a sandwich made from pizza dough. In particular, the spicy vodka chicken cotoletta panuozzo by Tommy Panini.

Tell me more about panuozzo

The hot panuozzo sandwich might have been born in the hills of Naples, but Tom Morrison perfected his version at his tiny Brookvale shop in 2024. He recently opened a second store in Bondi.

Each morning, he and the teams hand-stretch Neapolitan-style dough (that’s been proven for 48 hours), slice it and fill it with fior di latte cheese before brushing it with garlic and rosemary oil.

“When you order your panini, our chefs then fire the bread in the wood-fired oven and once [it’s cooked], it’s filled with our fresh ingredients and served charred and hot,” he says.

The result? Sandwich alchemy.

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So, let’s talk about the spicy vodka chicken cotoletta

It’s a glorious sandwich stuffed with a hefty chicken cotoletta (known as a schnitzel to you and me). It’s topped with provolone that’s been blow-torched, so it melts over the breaded chook like a bad-fitting suit. The chicken is nestled in the panuozzo with pickled chillies, which helps cut through the richness and gives it crunch, and there’s also a not-too-much-but not-too-little amount of pesto and spicy vodka sauce.

Wait, it’s got vodka in it?

Yes, but not really. Vodka sauce is made using vodka, but the booze is cooked out much like you do with white wine. Morrison says they make their sauce by cooking onions and garlic, then deglazing the pan with vodka. Italian tomatoes, tomato concentrate, Calabrian chilli, cream, basil, oregano and seasoning is added and simmered, before it’s blended into a thick, luscious sauce. “When we first opened, I said to my staff, if we can sell 30 a day I’ll be so happy,” says Morrison. “We sell up to 2000 across two stores now a week.”

You can even take it on a run (I reckon)

I’ve eaten many sandwiches, and this one might be the most architecturally sturdy of them all. In fact, I reckon I could eat this big fellow while vigorously running along an obstacle-heavy track, and it wouldn’t fall apart.

Where to get it

The original Tommy Panini is at 4/515 Pittwater Road in Brookvale, open Mon-Thu 11am-2.30pm, Fri-Sat 10am-2.30pm, Sun 11am-2pm. The new store, at 141 Glenayr Avenue, Bondi, is open Wed-Fri 11am-2.30pm and Sat-Sun 11am-3pm. At night, the Bondi store turns into Pizza Laundry, which Morrison co-owns with Kyle D’adam. It serves equally excellent pizzas.

This is the latest instalment of Sandwich Watch, a column dedicated to the Sydney sandwiches you need to know about.