Photos by Evie Carpenter
Grade: A-
Any restaurant with the name “Bianco” on the end will consistently amaze its customers.
Pane Bianco, sibling to downtown’s famed Pizzeria Bianco, serves flatbread-style sandwiches with simple ingredients. Tomatoes, cheese and bread create the most prominent tastes — no need for fancy spices or complicated recipes. Chefs Chris and Marco Bianco rely on one simple trick: high-quality ingredients. Everything on Pane Bianco’s sandwiches is so delicious that there’s no need for anything else to make it more interesting.
In front of the restaurant, a constant gathering of customers populates picnic tables that serve both Pane Bianco and the next-door Lux coffee shop. Whether they’re coming for lunch or dinner, both these businesses have developed a loyal following and are consistently busy.
My first visit to Pane Bianco was at lunchtime. I stepped inside the tiny shop, which had two tables with two chairs each. A shelf stood on the left side with individual ingredients for sale: a can of tomatoes, spices and an array of extra virgin olive oil. A chalkboard displayed lunch options, a collection of three sandwiches and a daily special.
I chose the mozzarella, tomato and basil sandwich. I can only assume the low number of ingredients helped ensure that each tasted perfect. The mozzarella was possibly the freshest I have ever had, the tomato was juicy and flavorful, the subtle taste of basil complemented the cheese and tomato and the bread was warm and crisp. All four parts of the sandwich were excellent.
After I finished the sandwich, I stopped by Lux for a cappuccino, which made for a flawless lunch. My expectations for dinner were impossibly high, but for my next meal, Pane Bianco came close to meeting them.
I came back with some friends a few days later, excited to try several dinner dishes. I chose the gnocchi, one of my favorite pastas, for my own entree. The curled pieces were larger than usual — almost as large as pierogi — and the texture of the potato-based pasta was lighter and fluffier than its usual composition. It was an interesting version of gnocchi and was good enough for even the pickiest pasta lovers to try at least once. I was disappointed, however, by an overuse of olive oil, which made the pasta soggy and slightly overwhelming. It exceeded average pasta by a mile, but it could have been better.
My friends let me try some of their margherita and rosa pizzas, which were both as good as what is available at the acclaimed Pizzeria Bianco — minus the 90-minute wait. The rosa, which features the tastes of slightly bitter parmigiano reggiano cheese, strong red onions and pistachios, was a true gourmet pizza, and so was the more basic margherita, seasoned lightly with basil. Both had crispy thin crusts that bubbled up at the ends, blackened by the Biancos’ recognizable brick ovens.
I left dinner at Pane Bianco slightly disappointed by gnocchi — despite the fact that I would recommend it to anyone — but my appetite was still satisfied, and I was still impressed. My expectations after the mozzarella and tomato sandwich had been fantastically high, and dinner was almost good enough to give Pane Bianco the title of my favorite restaurant in Phoenix.
If you haven’t been to either of the Bianco restaurants, you simply haven’t experienced Phoenix’s best cuisine. If you don’t want to wait hours to try Pizzeria Bianco, the food at Pane Bianco is quick enough so that there is no excuse to pass it up.
Contact the critic at john.l.fitzpatrick@asu.edu
