Mixed from scratch
Every batch starts with regeneratively farmed Wildfarmed flour, water, salt and olive oil, mixed by hand at our site in London. No premixes, no shortcuts, no bread bought in.
Our story
Born in Florence. Made in London.
"Santo cielo!", good heavens, is what Italians say when something takes them by surprise. It's also, we noticed, what people say the first time they bite into proper schiacciata.
Behind the counter
See what we're all about
Forty seconds inside Santo Cielo, from dough to devoured.
The bread
What is schiacciata, anyway?
Schiacciata, "squashed" in Italian, is Tuscany's answer to the question of what bread should be. Slow fermented, pressed flat by hand, drenched in extra virgin olive oil and baked hot until the top blisters gold, it comes out softer than focaccia and lighter than a baguette, with a crumb that drinks up every filling.
In Florence, people queue down the street for it at lunchtime. We joined those queues for years. Then we thought: why should Florence have all the fun?
The craft
You're not a proper sandwich shop unless you make your own bread
That's the belief this whole business is built on. Plenty of places sell sandwiches. Very few mix, ferment, stretch and bake their own bread every single day. We do, and it's the difference you taste in the first bite.
Slow fermented
The dough rests and ferments slowly, developing the deep flavour, open crumb and easy digestibility that fast bread simply cannot fake. Good things take time, and our schiacciata takes plenty.
Baked fresh, every day
Stretched by hand and baked hot on site every morning, so every sandwich is built on bread that came out of the oven hours before it reaches yours. Never day old, never frozen, never outsourced.
The move
Florence taught us. London made us.
Santo Cielo started with a suitcase, a starter dough recipe and a slightly unreasonable belief that London deserved schiacciata as good as the Oltrarno's. We tested the recipe against London flour, London water and the London weather until it tasted like home. The Italian one.
Today every schiacciata is baked fresh at our Islington bakery each morning and filled with ingredients we'd happily serve our own nonne: cheeses from sustainable cheesemakers Fratelli Amodio, charcuterie from the experts at Coombeshead Farm, and plenty of good extra virgin olive oil.
Tuscan Art. London Heart. That's the whole recipe.
Sustainability
Low food miles, high standards
Sustainability is a key focus at Santo Cielo, and it starts with food miles. Wherever we can, we choose British suppliers: regeneratively farmed Wildfarmed grain grown in British fields, Fratelli Amodio cheeses made fresh in the UK from British milk, and Coombeshead charcuterie cured in Cornwall. Italian soul, but the ingredients travel as little as possible.
It carries through to how your sandwiches arrive. Our London deliveries ride with Pedal Me by cargo bike, which means zero emission food miles across the city, moved by people who are treated properly. For us, sustainability means looking after the planet and the people on it.
Our partners
The people behind the ingredients
A sandwich is only as good as what goes in it. We hunt down the best producers in Britain and Italy, then build our schiacciata around them. Here are a few of the ones we're proudest to work with.
Lead supplier
Wildfarmed
Visit ↗You may have seen the Clarkson's Farm episode where the superstar DJs talked about regenerative farming. Well, these guys do it for real, and have their own wholesale supplier called Wildfarmed. Their grain is grown in regenerative fields with no pesticides, fungicides or herbicides, putting life back into the soil and flavour back into food. We've onboarded and use their 00 pizza flour and protein flour for our beautiful schiacciata bread. Yet to DJ B2B with Groove Armada though.
Caseificio Fratelli Amodio
Follow ↗These guys make the highest quality Italian style cheeses in the UK with the freshest milk available. You know those gold top glass bottles that are basically creamy deliciousness? That milk is turned straight into the freshest mozzarella, burrata, stracciatella and ricotta in the UK. No sandwich is Italian without the cheese, and we are proud to use the best quality.
Coombeshead Farm
Website ↗Finding good quality cured meats in the UK is proving to be the hardest challenge. Coombeshead do just that. High quality meats, focusing on Mangalitza pigs and Dexter cows, all outdoor reared and butchered on site, exquisitely rendered and beautifully cured down in Cornwall. Their hams are salted for six weeks and air dried for months, and the difference is obvious from the first bite.
Distribution partner
Pedal Me
Visit ↗Our London distribution partner. Pedal Me move our platters and wholesale drops by cargo bike, which means zero emission food miles across the city. Just as important is how they treat people: riders are hired as full time employees with extensive training and proper pay, a genuine stand against exploitative gig work and modern slavery in delivery. That's the social side of sustainability, and it's why we ride with them.
What we believe
Three small commandments
Bread comes first
The best fillings in the world can't save tired bread. Ours is baked every morning, never the day before, never frozen.
Ingredients with passports
If it can be better, it comes from Italy. If it can be fresher, it comes from London. No compromises in between.
Feed people generously
A sandwich should feel like hospitality, not a transaction. Every schiacciata is filled like we're feeding family, because that's how Florence does it.