This New York Times-recognized sandwich shop is opening a new location in Manhattan
While most kids spent their waking weekend hours parked in front of the TV, a young Anthony Valois was already up and in line with his father—ready and waiting to be one of the first customers to be let inside their favorite Italian deli. Even now, the smell alone is enough to bring him back to the good times.
“Opening up that door and the smell of cured meats [and] the chaos of what's going on behind the counter—everything was intoxicating,” said Valois.
As a first-generation Italian-American growing up in Brooklyn, food was a huge part of Valois’s livelihood, with vivid memories of grandparents canning tomatoes and school lunch boxes filled with cheeses and mortadella. From an early age, he grew to understand the importance of his food and its ties to his culture.
“I started appreciating what goes into Italian cuisine, the philosophies and how to respect the ingredients,” he said, curious about the regionality of cheese and meats at a young age. At one point, he even romanticized opening a trattoria in his homeland. But life goes on, and so did Valois.
As a young adult, he briefly attended college, but left after receiving an opportunity to intern on Wall Street. There he stayed for 22 years in the private equity and fund management sectors. Over the years, the little interest he had in the profession faded, and Valois leaned on food to excite him again. But it wasn’t the food of the old country that drew him in. Instead, it was all American barbecue.
“Barbecue seemed simple to me because it was just a big hunk of meat, some seasoning, some fire and a few hours, right? Little did I know, it's the most complex thing to master and do,” said Valois.
Leaning into both the business world and barbecue, Valois started his own catering company, cheekily naming his business the Smoke Exchange. His weekdays were spent prepping, smoking, serving and selling barbecue alongside his regular nine to five. He easily became a favorite of the office, if not employee of the month, feeding boardrooms his style of barbecue. He loved the hustle, but he admitted it “got to the point where I couldn't do both effectively.” Eventually, it was his coworkers who stepped in to support his dreams.
“They saw I had some sort of talent, and I was lucky enough that they supported me, gave me an opportunity to exit and gave me a little backing,” said Valois. He soon transitioned to catering full-time and even entered the competition circuit, where he nabbed awards for his barbecue and chili. All of this eventually laddered up to his own restaurant in 2018.
Partnering with Phil Farinacci and Peter Botros, Valois worked as the pitmaster of Corner House BBQ in Staten Island. While Valois's signature style aligned with cue' found on the competition circuit, at the restaurant, he cooked the “Holy Trinity” of barbecue, serving Texas-style brisket, ribs from St. Louis and Carolina-style pulled pork. The restaurant ran for three years, ultimately closing in December of 2021 due to continued financial strain of the pandemic. It all ultimately took a toll on Valois.
“The pressure of running a restaurant was getting to me,” he said as the business began to wind down. And just a month after closing, his father passed away. “All I kept thinking was that he wasn't able to rest in peace because I wasn't in the best shape,” he said of his state at the time. This drove Valois to push forward and start another business to make his father and his family proud.
“I wanted to make him proud, even though he's not here,” he said. “And when the time comes, if I'm able to leave something behind I want my son to be proud of what we built together.”
As memories were flooding back, there was one food in particular that stood out above the rest: sandwiches. Valois fondly remembered his father packing prosciutto and mozzarella sandwiches for picnics and sharing fried sausage and broccoli sammies in the kitchen as a midnight snack. Soon after, Valois fell back on the humble food as “it was a simpler way for me to express the cuisine I love,” opening Anthony’s Paninoteca in 2022.
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Simple as it may seem, Valois’s pint-sized sandwich shop is anything but—one look at the over 40-plus selections will tell you that much. Most of his breads come straight from the motherland, as does a selection of cured meats and cheeses. Every week, Valois can be found tying up pork shoulder for crackly-coated porchetta or out back, smoking pastrami for the special of the day. But it was his roast beef sandwich, Do It For Johnny, served with a gravy so dark Valois calls it “motor oil” that caught the eye of The New York Times, and received a spot on the 57 Sandwiches That Define New York City list.
“I’ll tell my staff and the customers—sometimes they think I'm nuts when I ramble on about bread or the ingredients,” he said. “I want to bring the best here in New York and the country. At least I see that what I'm doing is working, people are acknowledging it and, more importantly, they're enjoying it.
And now, Valois is set to please even more New Yorkers with his coming location, soon to land at Time Out Market Union Square. Rebranding his sandwich shop as Paninoteca by Anthony, Valois will soon serve refined renditions from his Staten Island shop next to new combos, such as the Prosciutto Union Square (prosciutto di parma, mozzarella and sundried peppers) and the Della-Tella (ruffle-studded mortadella, creamy stracciatella and pistachio pesto). Soon, Valois will be able to carry out his simple mission of feeding the community.
“This might sound cliche, but I really do want to just feed people, have them walk out with a smile [and] introduce them with it to the foods I grew up with,” he said.
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