Monday lunch hours in Midtown see a steady stream of office workers seeking relief from the heat with lighter fare. One dish appearing more frequently on chalkboard menus is panzanella, the Italian bread salad built around cubes of day-old bread. At Ciao Bella on East 45th Street, chef Marco Rossi says the kitchen goes through nearly three loaves of rustic sourdough every afternoon just for the salad.
Panzanella is built for summer, combining tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and torn basil with toasted or stale bread. Olive oil and vinegar dress the mixture, which is often left to sit for at least 20 minutes before serving. The result is a salad that is as much about texture as it is about flavor, with bread soaking up tomato juices and dressing.
At the Greenmarket in Union Square on Saturday, shoppers picked through baskets of heirloom tomatoes and sourdough rounds, some mentioning panzanella as their intended dish. Vendor James Wu, who sells to several downtown restaurants, notes a sharp rise in bulk bread orders since late July, when tomatoes reached their peak.
Local chefs are adjusting the formula by adding grilled corn, peaches, or even cubes of fresh mozzarella. But the foundation remains the same: leftover bread, repurposed with seasonal produce. With temperatures forecasted to stay high through August, restaurants expect demand for chilled salads like panzanella to continue through the end of the month.