I’ve got to chime in here. Having grown up in the Philadelphia area and having lived in the Harrisburg area and also the midwest for a time, and having visited many other cities, I can state with certainty that the one and only place you can get a proper cheesesteak is in the city of brotherly love.
Sure, anyone can make their own, in fact I rate my own homemade cheesesteaks on par with the best Philly has to offer, but the issue (as someone stated earlier) isn’t the meat, the onions, the cheese or the pizza sauce, though all are important. The one thing you can’t get outside Philadelphia is a proper Italian roll. Forget your glorified hot dog rolls in Harrisburg. In fact when I lived closer to York PA, I used to drive to Harrisburg to a place that had the closest next best thing to a Philadelphia roll. Forget your fresh store baked rolls at Subway (yuck!). The farther away you get from the heart of Italian South Philadelphia, the less likely you are to be able to obtain a proper roll, and once you get say 40 or 50 miles out from the epicenter, forget it. No way. You just can’t do it. koeeoaddi has the right idea, substituting a french baguette in the Pacific northwest. This is, in fact, the next best thing to use if you are not in Philadelphia.
Amoroso’s is the most well known Italian bakery that makes these rolls, and as such they are the defacto standard, but there are even better rolls out there. Poke around the many places in South Philadelphia where they make cheesesteaks and hoagies (same roll), and you’ll find any number of smaller Italian bakeries making even more awesome rolls specially for these shops - they make small quantities, and compared to Amorosos (which I like a lot, don’t get me wrong), they have way more character, a tougher crust, and fresh chewy bread on the inside. One hoagie shop I know that uses one of the most awesome rolls ever, gets a certain amount of these rolls in the morning, custom baked for them by some small bakery in South Philly, and when the rolls are all gone, they close for the day - I’ve seen this happen at 3pm.
The fact the these rolls are so unique to Philadelphia is sort of similar to the phenomenon that really really great french baguettes can only be found in France. I’ve had some really great baguettes stateside, but in Paris you find the highest quality baguettes by the thousands on literally every block. Not to insult the French, but how hard can it be to make a great baguette if they are pumping them out like water? Well, there is some factor at work here, and it is similar to the Italian roll phenomenon in Philadelphia. I can’t begin to explain it - where are Sculder and Mulley when we need them?
So, I’ll second the person who said, if the place calls it a “Philadelphia cheesesteak” your first instinct should be to run the other way. Granted there may be expatriate Philadelphians who may be glad they no longer have to shop at the Accamee, and they may make a reasonable facsimile of a cheesesteak, but the only way to get the real thing is to come to Philadelphia. Oh and thanks Frank for a great op. I’d be tempted to go chomp two myself right now if I hadn’t had that late lunch today. Cheers.
Anyone who is planning to visit Philadelphia is welcome to email me for cheesesteak tour guide suggestions. The cheesesteak might be the best thing this city has going for it.
