Porchetta: Where to Find This Savory Italian Roasted Pork Dish in North Texas

One of the special occasion dishes in Italian households, along with standbys like ravioli and veal, is porchetta, a boneless pork roast originally from central Italy, cooked with the fat and skin still intact and usually stuffed with a savory mélange of garlic, rosemary and fennel. It’s then sliced as one would a loaf and served either hot or the next day in a sandwich, preferably in a good roll, which can sometimes be even better.

Porchetta is not too difficult to find in places where Italian immigrants settled, such as along the iron ranges of northern Minnesota in the Midwest or on the East Coast, but it can be a bit difficult to find in the Dallas area. This isn’t made easier by the fact that it often goes by other names such as “Italian pulled pork” or “Italian roast pork,” and occasionally is spelled “porketta” (we’re looking at you, Jimmy’s Food Store.).

Here, then, are a few places that regularly offer up this fine Italian treat in North Texas:

Sachet

4720 Oak Lawn Ave.

Sachet’s offering is a porchetta spiced pork shoulder sandwich. Here it’s served on toasted rye, with rapini, provolone and Calabrian chile spread, which provides a nice balance to the moist and tender fall-apart pork. It’s no wonder that this made the list as one of our favorite sandwiches this year.

Barsotti’s

4208 Oak Lawn Ave.

Roast porchetta hero is on the lunch menu at Barsotti’s. It’s served with cheese and broccoli rabe on a bun. The slight bitterness from the al dente broccoli provides both a welcome texture and flavor addition to the traditional presentation of this sandwich. This used to be available as a weekly special only, but it now has a permanent home.

Jimmy’s Food Store

4901 Bryan St.

Jimmy’s calls its version a Philly roast pork porketta sandwich and it comes on a bun with porchetta, gravy, broccoli rabe, peppers and provolone. The au jus gravy transforms this sandwich into a sloppy mess, in a good way à la an Italian beef sandwich. The peppers and broccoli again providing a counterpoint to the full-flavored pork.

North Italia

7501 Windrose Ave., No. D190, Plano

The pulled porchetta sandwich from North Italia arrives on a ciabatta roll with pickled red onion, shallots, fontina cheese, salsa verde and Calabrian aioli along with a side salad. It’s a fine sandwich with flavorful, tender meat, but the porchetta flavor factor was a bit lacking.

The Downing Bottles & Bites

106 S. San Jacinto St., Rockwall

The porchetta sandwich at The Downing Bottles & Bites in Rockwall comes with thinly-sliced pork dressed with pesto, arugula and red onion, served in an Italian roll for $14. Many diners rave over it.

Numero 28

190 E. Stacy Road, No. 1404, Allen

Numero 28 offers porchetta two ways: For a main course, it’s slices of pork loin stuffed with herbs and served with cabbage; in panini form, it uses trimmings from the porchetta entree along with arugula and provolone dressed with chipotle aioli. Why not order both?

Other spots in the Dallas area have served porchetta and might again in the future. Restaurants such as Piada and il Bracco have offered it but don’t at the moment. Petra and the Beast also offers it occasionally as an entree or on a charcuterie board.  Be sure to scour the menu of any Italian restaurant or sandwich shop and let us know if you discover some more.