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Type: Italian
Hours: Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m.-8 p.m.; Sat. 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
Good choices: Potato and pancetta pane Romano; tomato and basil pane Romano; sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese pane Romano; prosciutto and Fontina cheese sandwich; Italian tuna salad sandwich; sauteed vegetable sandwich; minestrone soup; ciambella.
Credit cards: All major credit cards.
Access: Fully accessible.
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CAMPO DE FIORI
1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
(Holyoke Center Arcade- Harvard Square)
(617) 354-3805
Restaurant reviewed 12/02/98 by Sheryl Julian
By the time Harvard Square's Campo de' Fiori had the final brush of paint on its walls and opened early last summer, students were lined up for the incredible "pane Romano" -- Roman bread. More than bread and not quite pizza, pane Romano is so thinly rolled it seems like parchment paper, so crisp that you can hold up a rectangle without it buckling in your hand, and so beautifully garnished with mild herbs or thinly sliced potatoes or tomatoes or cheese that you regret the moment when the last mouthful is gone.
The odds were stacked against this little place from the start. Campo de' Fiori is a fancy food stall tucked inside Holyoke Center and there's little reason to enter unless you're in search of the very few shops within. In addition, Pane Romano is unknown here, though it's the rage in Italy, particularly in Rome's crowded Campo de' Fiori marketplace (hence the name).
Some people insist on calling this thin bread with topping a pizza because the two are made similarly. Pane Romano is entirely handmade, never rolled out; it's simply patted with the fingertips directly onto 8-foot-long cornmeal-dusted boards. The result is a very, very thin rectangle (the slices are also rectangular), each slightly different, with light toppings.
Pane Romano "al taglio" (by the slice) is the name of the bread with toppings. The potato ($3.50 and $4) has just the right proportion of thin potato slices, exactly the amount of rosemary needed to season it, and a subtle taste of pancetta. Another of my favorites is the tomato and basil ($3 and $3.50), the topping so sparse that it doesn't seem possible that it will have as much flavor as it does. Sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese isn't on the regular menu but turned out to be another big hit.
Pane Romano comes plain when it's an accompaniment to morning coffee. In Campo's sweet combo, irresistible at $2, you get a choice of ciambella, an airy, sugary doughnut, or plain pane Romano with marmalade, jam, or Nutella (a creamy chocolate-hazelnut spread), along with coffee or tea.
All the specials are big bargains. At lunch and dinner, Campo offers a soup combo ($5) -- a small bowl of soup, your choice of pane Romano with a topping, and a drink. The minestrone casareccio ($3.50 and $4.50) is a beautiful bowl, rich with pesto and its floating crust of grated Parmesan.
Plain pane is also used as sandwich bread. My favorite is the prosciutto with Fontina cheese ($5.50), though Italian tuna ($4.50) is also wonderful. The sandwiches are thin, even stuffed with tomatoes and chopped lettuce, and they really show off the crusty bread, which isn't hard, but nicely crisp.
Campo de' Fiori is owned by two couples and mostly run by one of the pairs -- Isabel Gamsohn, who is French, and Bruno Galardi-Este, who is half French and half Italian. The other couple is Jaimyse Haft, who is half Italian and half Japanese, and her boyfriend, French-American actor Christopher Lambert.
Haft comes in from Paris or Los Angeles for a week a month to work on development and expansion because the partners plan to make more Campos. Shops are in the works for sites in downtown Boston and in Manhattan.
Lambert comes when he's not filming (he just finished "Resurrection" in Toronto; "Gideon," which he's also in, comes out at the beginning of the year).
They all decided to make pane Romano after tasting it at the Antico Forno bakery in the Campo de' Fiori, where it is said to be the best in Rome.
Thirty seats along Holyoke's arcade are self-service and the way the shop is laid out, you can watch the pane being made. Where the place falters is in the carry out packaging (too flimsy) and in the organization (you can't point to the pane while you order because they're too far away).
They'll fix these little things as the shop evolves and then Campo will enjoy the same popularity as the bakery in Rome where the four partners first fell in love with the bread. People will come from all over just to taste it and swoon.
Tips & hits
