Cosmi’s Deli’s Chicken Cutlet Lagasse Is One of Philly’s Great Sandwiches

Of all the entries in Philly’s classic hot-hoagie canon, the unsauced chicken cutlet is the hardest to pull off.

A great cheesesteak is a true world wonder, but the combination of ribeye and cheese is almost always good. Roast pork has the built-in advantage of being served in its own jus. A sandwich smothered in marinara and mozzarella needn’t be perfectly cooked to be edible.

By contrast, a non-sauced cutlet is a tightrope walk with no safety net. Chicken is a humbler protein, and cheese and vegetables can’t rescue a cutlet that’s chewy or dry. Many places in Philadelphia are up to the task: Pastificio, Ricci’s, and Farina di Vita, to name a few. But the gold(en-brown) standard is Cosmi’s Deli’s Chicken Cutlet Lagasse.

You learn two things very quickly about Mike Seccia, Cosmi’s third-generation owner. First, he relishes the minutiae of food preparation. He weaves between impassioned digressions about how slicing meat differently alters its flavor and what point-of-sales data reveals about ordering trends. (Everyone wants chicken parm on the first cold day of winter.) A willingness to do things the hard way, like cleaning broccoli rabe down to its tenderest bits, is what Seccia argued “separates the good places.”

Second, Seccia draws constant inspiration from his father, Leon, to build relationships with his customers. After Leon died in 2017, Mike was struck by how many people shared memories of his dad. “My father had two families,” he reminisced. “He had the Cosmi’s family and he had his normal family.” Seccia, 55, was part of both from the time he was old enough to play with a pricing gun.

Seccia accelerated the shop’s gradual pivot from the butcher and grocer his great-uncle Cosmi Quattrone opened in 1932 into a full-blown deli. He convinced his father to upgrade the kitchen and expand the menu while renovating after a fire in 2000. Soon afterward, he started augmenting the typical provolone and broccoli rabe on cutlets he made for his friends with prosciutto and oven-roasted long hots. The Lagasse was born.

It starts with the chicken. Seccia attributes its textural perfection — crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside — to being made to order. “A thin cutlet, after you fry it and it sits, if you warm it again, it then becomes dry,” he explained. “So we cook it fresh, it comes right out, golden brown, it goes right in the roll.”

That seeded roll, from Carangi Baking Company, is sturdy and flavorful without overtaking the cutlet. Sharp provolone and thinly shaved Parma prosciutto bring pops of salt to each bite. The garlicky bitterness of the broccoli rabe and the complex heat of the long hots, both cooked to maximize tenderness, cut the heaviness of the meat and cheese. If the spice is too much for you, the sandwich is still excellent sans peppers — or better yet, add cooling fresh mozzarella to balance them out.

Crucially, the chicken remains the star. “It’s not jumped-up, where you have 15 different things and you put it in your mouth and you’re like, ‘What am I eating here?’” Seccia said. “You get these different flavors that I think work really well together.”

Two decades after its inception, the Lagasse — a name Seccia consistently announces with a sense of occasion — is second only to the cheesesteak as the most-popular hot sandwich on Cosmi’s expansive menu, and the bestseller among South Philly locals. “Give them what they want,” Seccia preached. “And they want cutlets.”

Lewis Pollis is a data scientist by day and a freelance food writer. Find more of his food writing at his Substack, The Lewsletter, and follow his culinary adventures on Instagram @LewieTheFewdie.