Amighetti’s, a bakery and sandwich shop on the Hill, combines good eats with a gregarious crowd. (Peter Davis | Student Life)

Friendly service, fun ambiance and respectable food: It’s all part of the experience at the Hill’s famous bakery and sandwich shop, Amighetti’s. After years of enduring social pressure, I finally checked out the eatery renowned for its extra-fresh bread and savory meats.

Like any restaurant on the Hill, Amighetti’s emanates a charm that cannot be duplicated by other St. Louis eateries. The quaint deli sits unassumingly on Wilson Avenue among many other old buildings. Everything seems peaceful until you actually enter the restaurant—all of a sudden, the ambience changes.

At 1 p.m. on a Tuesday, the tiny, classically-decorated restaurant was already packed. Schoolchildren, apparently skipping math class for a sandwich bigger than their arms, were running around joyfully.

Customers were smiling and the whole place was filled with the buzz of congeniality. Everyone appeared to know everyone else, creating a giant circle of friends, I observed from the outside. This didn’t last long; five minutes after my friend and I sat down, we were approached by a jovial fellow who asked us if he and his friends could join us. Ordinarily, there are few things I’d like less than having to talk at length to a stranger with a giant meatball stain on his shirt, but at Amighetti’s, this seemed like the norm.

The service mirrored the customer base; the staff all seemed happy to be there and proud to be presenting their product in the best light possible. They ask you how your day is, they explain the ingredients of every dish to you, and, for the most part, they seem to be genuinely glad that you are there.

After about 10 minutes, our food was delivered to the table. The first order of business was the lasagna. I ordered this because I saw it on one of the other tables and it looked great. Not charred but not undercooked, the lasagna was a golden brown on a canvas of rich red.

A vital component of success in the kingdom of pasta dishes is the freshness of the noodle. As seen in this dish and others, when it comes to being fresh, Amighetti’s gets it right. There’s something about the great texture and taste of a noodle right out of the oven that brings a dish to another level.

The lasagna noodles were cooked superbly so that they were firm without being chewy. The melted cheese was gooey and delicious with a sharper taste that provided a great contrast to the tomato sauce.

Speaking of the sauce, this was my only problem with the lasagna. The sweet, slightly tangy taste of tomatoes was okay, but it was just not great. I suppose I was looking for a slightly more distinctive flavor from the sauce, but it never came. Again, it did not ruin the plate, but rather changed my opinion of the lasagna from being fantastic to being good.

On to the real reason I went to Amighetti’s: their sandwiches. I ordered “the Special,” which consisted of (deep breath) Genoa salami, roast beef, ham, pepperoncini, brick cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions and Amighetti’s famous, super-duper special sauce, all on their even more famous, wonderfully fresh Italian bread.

Let’s start with the bread. Forget the lasagna noodles because this bread blows them away. Place anything (besides villainous peanut butter) between two pieces of Amighetti’s bread and I would like it.

The sandwiches are huge—really long and really wide. What makes the sandwich most difficult to fit in one’s mouth, however, is the layer upon layer of meat Amighetti’s piles on.

What was so special about this sandwich was that you could taste its different layers, with the spicier, saltier salami and pepperoncini standing out from the sweeter and more savory flavors of the ham and roast beef. Although I did not pick up much flavor from the cheese, it did serve to add an unnecessary 100-200 calories to an already guilt-laden meal (I’m not even going to write about the Amighetti’s head-sized, flavorless cookie I bought and ate right after). The vegetables were pretty ordinary, leaving us to discuss the super-secret “sauce to end all sauces.”

In 1879, archaeologist Othniel Charles Marsh claimed to have discovered a new dinosaur, which he called Brontosaurus. In 1903 it was shown that the by-then-famous Brontosaurus was in fact the same dinosaur as the previously discovered Apatosaurus. Eerily similar, in 1921 Amighetti’s was founded and its “special sauce” became mildly well known. Nearly 90 years later, my sleuth team has discovered that Amighetti’s super sauce is remarkably akin to the little-known condiment “mayonnaise.”

Now I don’t mean to spark controversy; all I’m saying is that I’m pretty sure I saw Mrs. Amighetti at Schnucks the other day asking for a price check on 40 bottles of Hellmann’s. In any event, if you like mayo, something tells me you’ll like the sauce. This was a great sandwich at a good value. Try it!

I also got a chance to test the vegetarian sandwich, which came with an assortment of vegetables and cheese, along with the sauce. It was pretty ordinary and frankly disappointing compared to the first sandwich. To gain a more satisfying experience with this one, try ordering it without the vegetables, cheese and sauce.

In general, Amighetti’s is quite inexpensive considering the large portion sizes. And most of the food was pretty good. If you’re looking for a unique experience during the daytime, I’d recommend venturing to the Hill for a giant sandwich and a fun time with a gregarious crowd.