Monte’s Fine Foods in Portland began selling vegan Italian sandwiches in 2019. Photo by Avery Yale Kamila Steve Quattrucci grew up in Portland eating and making Maine Italian sandwiches. It’s fitting, then, that he should be the first entrepreneur to take this local food classic in a very 21st-century culinary direction and sell a vegan Maine Italian.
Quattrucci is part of a large Italian-American family with extensive roots in the city’s restaurant culture. Ray Quattrucci, his father, owned Quattrucci’s Hilltop Superette at the corner of Congress and North streets from 1975 until 1983, and his paternal grandparents, Guy and Assunta Quattrucci, owned Balboa Cafe on India Street, near Miccuci’s, from the 1920s through the 1940s. Quattrucci spent a lot of time at the superette, which, like the Italian corner markets of its day, did a brisk trade in Italian sandwiches .
Quattrucci’s Hilltop Superette sold both ham and veggie versions (the latter came with either American cheese or provolone). Alongside its pillowy sub roll, the Maine Italian sandwich’s defining characteristic is its combination of vegetable toppings: sour pickles, sliced white onions, green bell pepper strips, tomato slices and black olives dressed in olive oil, salt and black pepper. In my opinion, it’s the bread and vegetable combination that dominates the sandwich’s taste, texture and visual appeal.
Quattrucci remembers a few customers ordering the sandwiches at the superette in the 1970s an.
