09/02/2026
It is called an Italian, there is nothing Italian on it, and if you order it anywhere else in the country you will get a completely different sandwich. 🥪
Giovanni Amato came to Portland from Naples in the 1890s and by 1902 he was selling bread off a cart on the working waterfront. The dockworkers kept asking him to split the loaves and put something inside, so he did: ham, white American cheese, tomato, green pepper, sour pickle, raw onion, black olives, then oil, salt and pepper poured over the whole thing. He named it the Italian after his own people. By 1930 the shop was turning out 1,500 a day at fifteen cents each.
The details are non negotiable and every Mainer will tell you so. The roll has to be soft, not crusty, and it gets pressed flat rather than hollowed out. The cheese is white American, not provolone. The pepper is raw green bell, never roasted. The oil soaks through the paper on the way home and that is the point. 🍅
Amato's opened on India Street and the family ran it until 1972. There are Italian sandwich shops all over Maine now, and a decent number of people will argue that Amato's is no longer even the best one, which is its own kind of compliment.
Who makes the best Italian in Maine, and do you take it with everything or do you pick something off?
