The morning after fire ripped through an apartment upstairs from Italian deli destination L. Mancuso & Son, co-owner Jimmy Cialella told The Inquirer that it would be closed for “at least a couple of days” to repair damage caused by what he called “firefighters needing to be firefighters.”
That was in January 2024.
“They realized the building needed all kinds of work,” manager Jake Santini said last week at the narrow storefront on East Passyunk Avenue near Mifflin Street, which opened around 1939. The repairs were top to bottom, including new refrigeration, a slate floor, and counters.
But most importantly, they’ve picked up where they left off after 20 months.
Santini and co-manager Chris Ciliberto are still hand-making mozzarella and ricotta from the Mancuso’s recipes, and the new shelves along the side wall are still filled with the line of Cento tomatoes, tinned fish, and other groceries. Baked goods fill the counter. The familiar fake cheese wheels and neon sign? Just where they left them.
The new iteration includes a line of specialty sandwiches, to supplement the hoagie menu that began in 2022, after Cialella and partner John Denisi bought the deli from Edda Mancuso, widow of the charming, opera-singing Phil Mancuso, who had run his pop Lucio’s business from the 1970s until his death in 2021.
The house mozz stars in six of the nine new sandwiches, available not only on Cacia’s rolls (seeded or unseeded) but on schiacciata, a Tuscan flatbread from Baker Street that’s like a crunchy, thinner focaccia.
That schiacciata and the mozz deftly balance sweet and heat on the bold Partenza ($17), with its hot coppa, nduja spread, long hots, and hot honey.