Trapizzino: Rome's pizza pocket that made saucy Roman stews one-hand street food

In 2008 Stefano Callegari ran 00100, a pizza-by-the-slice shop in Rome's Testaccio district. Roman food is built on saucy slow-cooked dishes — oxtail, tongue in green sauce — but none of it travels as a snack; a sandwich of stew soaks through and falls apart before the first bite.

Bake pizza bianca as a closed triangle pocket and stuff it with slow-cooked Roman classics — the bread is the plate, so street food keeps fine-dining depth.

Callegari combined tramezzino (the triangular café sandwich) with pizza: he baked a white pizza-bianca triangle closed on the sides, let it cool, then stuffed it to order with classics like braised oxtail, tongue in salsa verde, meatballs and zighinì. Later versions use a 200-year-old sourdough starter and a 30-hour dough, so the pocket holds the sauce without losing its crunch.

The trapizzino became Rome's 'OG street food,' praised as the bridge between culinary heritage and fast food. It grew from one slice shop to outlets in Rome, Milan, Turin, Florence, Trieste and New York (from 2017), and Gambero Rosso gave Callegari its 2024 career award 'I Maestri dell'Impasto.'

In 2008, Stefano Callegari — a former Alitalia flight attendant who had turned to pizza in his forties — ran 00100, a pizza-by-the-slice shop in Rome's Testaccio district. Roman cuisine is built on slow-cooked, sauce-heavy dishes like oxtail and tongue in green sauce, but none of it travelled: a sandwich of stew soaks through and falls apart before the first bite. Callegari's question was how to put that food in someone's hand.

His answer combined two existing formats: tramezzino, the triangular café sandwich, and pizza bianca, Rome's lean, chewy flatbread. He baked the bianca as a closed triangle pocket, let it cool, and stuffed it to order with the classics — braised oxtail, tongue in salsa verde, meatballs, zighinì. The bread is the plate: as food writer Katie Parla recorded in 2014, the fillings were rooted in Roman tradition, and Callegari deliberately echoed Florence's tripe stalls and Palermo's spleen sandwiches.

The format grew from one slice shop into a chain with outlets in Rome, Milan, Turin, Florence, Trieste and New York (from 2017). Parla called it Rome's 'OG street food'; Tasting Table credits the pocket with re-introducing traditional Roman dishes to younger generations who saw them as 'exotic'; and in 2024 Gambero Rosso gave Callegari its career award for his impact on the sector. A one-hand snack had made fine Roman cooking portable.

The insight was format, not flavour: he kept the slow-cooked classics intact and changed only the vessel, so heritage food gained portability without being dumbed down.

Separate baking and stuffing meant the bread stayed crisp and the sauce stayed in — solving the structural problem that had kept stews off the street-food menu.

A punning name (tramezzino + pizza) made the unfamiliar instantly describable to Romans and visitors alike.

The pocket scaled: the same dough and fillings moved from one slice shop to a six-city chain and a New York outpost, because the format travelled better than the dishes did.

Solve the format, not the recipe: the insight was that Roman classics needed a bread that could hold sauce, and the pocket turned a sit-down cuisine into street food without dumbing the food down.

Trapizzino now has locations in Rome, Milan, Turin, Florence, Trieste and New York, and its menu still revolves around the classics that began at 00100 — from nine-hour braised oxtail to tripe in tomato sauce. The original Testaccio shop closed and reopened under the Trapizzino name, and the format is routinely cited as the emblem of Roman street food abroad. Callegari went on to open the Sforno and Sbanco pizzerias, and Gambero Rosso awarded him the 2024 'I Maestri dell'Impasto' career prize.