The Godfather at Tony's Italian Deli

The next stop on our sandwich quest was Tony's Italian Deli for The Godfather. This sandwich got mixed reviews, to the utter amazement of this reviewer. Personally, I have to say this is the best sandwich I have ever eaten, even surpassing my former top pick, Carl John's Fried Bologna. But then, I am a person of excess. Give me flavor! Give me intensity! Give me more! Why make ordinary chocolate chip cookies when you can make chocolate chip cookies with oatmeal, double the chocolate chips, and toffee bits? Refined tastes, schmefined tastes--give me simple food but take it to the max. The Godfather is just such a sandwich, especially when ordered as instructed: "loaded."



It looks like an ordinary sandwich in the picture, but appearances deceive. Ordered loaded, as I'm pretty sure the photographed sandwich was not, it was so overflowing with goodies, it was nearly impossible to close. The genius of this sandwich is intense, flavorful, salty meat (salami and capicola) in perfect counterpart with the equally intense, somewhat sour kick of pepperoncini peppers. I was concerned that I would find the peppers too spicy, but instead, they were the ideal match for the meat. Backing up the strong harmony between the meats and the peppers were provolone cheese, mustard, and mayo, with lettuce, tomato, oil, and vinegar in the background. This is the most intense, flavorful sandwich I have ever experienced, and it remained in my mind for days afterward. Future sandwiches on the tour have a very tall order to unseat The Godfather as the sandwich champion of all time in my book. Aside from the intensity and excess, what made this sandwich for me was the three tiers of intensity-matched flavors. Many sandwiches have strength or balance among a few flavors, but it's rare to find a sandwich so optimized for both.

As for the atmosphere of the restaurant itself, we visited the Tony's in Madison, which has a straight-forward deli atmosphere decorated with NYC touches. It's not a place I would take a date (unless the date was even more like me than me), but for lunch with coworkers, I found the lack of pretension refreshing. It's the first place I'd to take any and all guy friends visiting from out of town. Anyway, I liked the sandwich so much, they could have served it just about anywhere--maybe a baby crying or an explosion would have detracted from my enjoyment of this sandwich, but anything short of that, no way. A few days later, I ended up at a sister location (Tony's Little Italy on Whitesburg)--it is more of a "real restaurant" or date-friendly sort of atmosphere, but it was loud and echoey, and I swear the food wasn't as good. Then again, I made the absurd mistake of ordering some other sandwich. Bah! I'll have to go back and order The Godfather for proper comparison. If it's not as good, I foresee a lot of drives out to Madison in my future.