Restaurant With Focus On Italian Street Food Opens On Smith St

CARROLL GARDENS, NY — A new restaurant selling a fried Italian turnover, similar to a calzone, opened up over the weekend on Smith Street. The spot is the second in the city to serve the dish.

Panzerotti Bites opened Sunday at 235 Smith St. and became the first spot in Brooklyn to serve the Southern Italian turnover panzerotto. A panzerotto looks like a handheld calzone but are fried and stuffed with different sweet and savory fillings, according to a release.

The menu has traditional panzerotto stuffed with tomato pulp, fresh mozzarella and oregano along with unique ones filled with smokes salmon, avocado, cream cheese and sesame seed and their Tartufo Panzerotto that has mozzarella, porcini mushrooms and black truffle oil, the release said.

Owners Vittoria Lattanzio and Pasquale de Ruvo were born in the Italian region Apulia where the dish was invented and they learned hot to make it. They decided to move across the ocean to Brooklyn over the summer and bring the dish with them.

Panzerotti Bites takes over the storefront of the former Hana Café Japanese restaurant which closed last year.

The eatery will be only the second in the city to serve panzerotto after Mr. Panzerotto opened in Greenwich Village in 2016.

Image courtesy of Barabino & Partners