Charlotte Day Wilson is ready to take your order at her new Italian sandwich shop

In 2024, musician Charlotte Day Wilson wanted to open a restaurant to bring together good food and an even better community. She teamed up with a few friends—Kaitlyn Lasagna, Andi Larocca and Paul Liliani—and they started Tutto Panino, a pop-up series at Burdock Brewery in Kensington Market. Loosely translated to “all sandwich,” Tutto Panino specializes in classic Italian sandwiches and treats, courtesy of Lasagna’s Sicilian upbringing. (And, yes, Lasagna is her real last name.) One year later, they now have a stand-alone shop on Sorauren Avenue, in the previous home of Mitzi’s Café. We spoke to Wilson and her Tutto Panino team members to find out how the sandwich shop came to be.

Charlotte Day Wilson: Paul and I have known each other since we were in grade six. He’s a personal trainer, so now we work out together a lot. He knew Kaitlyn and Andi from a previous job, and I knew both of them through the queer community.

Andi Larocca: Kaitlyn and I had a lot of friends in common, but I got to know her better when she was working at Robinson Bread during the pandemic. It’s inside the Sam James Coffee Shop on Brock Avenue, where Paul and I worked. In a cosmic way, all four of us had already worked together in some capacity. For about three years, Paul, Charlotte and I had been talking about opening a sandwich shop. And we’ve been looking at this location specifically—we wanted to be here. It’s such a good neighbourhood with so many nice people. The space used to be Mitzi’s Café, a popular brunch spot and a community hub. It was an attractive location for all of us.

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Paul Liliani: We’re friends with the owners of the building, and he was asking if anybody had a good idea for the space. He wanted to do something community-based and a callback to what it used to be. Everyone still talks about how much they loved Mitzi’s.

Larocca: At Sam James, I was the general manager. Paul reached out to me because we’d worked together in the past and he knew our work styles aligned. Then we were looking for a good chef partner—Kaitlyn was the final piece of the puzzle.  She’s been on board for just over a year.

Related: “People will always be able to hear Toronto in my music”—Charlotte Day Wilson on her new album, Cyan Blue

Wilson: I’ve always been passionate about food. We’re all engaged with everything we consume—it has to be the best. When I talk about coffee with Paul, the conversation has to be about the best coffee. The desire to do business together came from the idea of sharing our passion with the community.

Larocca: We started doing pop-ups pretty casually about a year ago. Kaitlyn asked if the rest of us were interested, and we were open to it. Tutto Panino was her idea.

Lasagna: It was  originally a placeholder name, but it became the real thing. I’m Italian, and  Italians love food. Food is my whole world—it’s what brings me the most joy. I love enjoying a good meal with people. And who doesn’t love a sandwich?

Previously, I was at Paradise Grapevine on Geary Avenue, when they had the full kitchen. Now, this is my full-time gig. It was an easy transition because I’m used to working long hours. I’ve been a baker, and I’ve worked in a lot of breakfast restaurants. I most recently worked at Pasta Forever, which my friend Jess Maiorano owns. I was helping her out until we started Tutto Panino.

Larocca: I always wanted to open a sandwich restaurant. It’s a built-in way to create community. The part about coffee shops I like the most is that you have repeat customers, and this business can replicate that feeling. Everyone eats sandwiches—I eat them at least a few times a week. If we can get customers to return, hopefully multiple times a week, we can get to know our regulars and build a community.

Wilson: I eat a lot of sandwiches. Sandwiches are comfort food. I wanted to do something outside of music but still in Toronto. I wanted a gathering place for myself, my community and my friends. Food is a vehicle for that. It checked all my boxes to evolve outside of music.

Lasagna: Growing up, my mom and grandma always fed me sandwiches, so we crafted our menu on nostalgic foods. I typically draw inspiration from my childhood. The sandwiches I ate growing up were simple—just meat and cheese. Our sandwiches at Tutto Panino may look simple, but they’re packed with flavour. We don’t want to overcomplicate them—we want them to be approachable and affordable. I used to work at Burdock, and Andi had a friend who was still working there. They had a cool new space in Kensington Market that they were trying to promote, so it worked out for us to collaborate and host a pop-up there.

Larocca: We got great feedback from everyone who came to the pop-ups—we learned a lot. We did them once a month last year, from April to September.  We’re grateful for our time at Burdock, but it’s a lot to run a pop-up— finding a kitchen to prep in, bringing everything to the kitchen and then bringing everything to the pop-up location. A physical space was always at the root of Tutto Panino.

We’re starting with a base of eight sandwiches, but we’re giving people the option to customize their orders. A lot of restaurants in Toronto have gone too far with the whole no-modification thing. We want to honour all diets.

Lasagna: The Bollito is our signature sandwich—we served it at every pop-up. It’s stewed brisket with salsa verde and chili oil. It hits perfectly every time. But I’m proud of our vegetarian options, which I think are lacking in Toronto. One of our veggie sandwiches is an eggplant caponata. It has some raisins, olives and capers—it’s a trip to Flavourtown.

Wilson: When I hear Kaitlyn talk about sandwiches and cooking, I always draw parallels between music and making music—finding the balance between what you’re influenced by and what you grew up listening to or eating. Figuring out how you reinterpret and expand on what you know and love is interesting.

Lasagna: Apart from sandwiches, we’ll serve cannoli and tiramisu for dessert. My dad is from Sicily, the birthplace of cannoli, and we were inspired by Onda Pasta Bar in Manchester, which has a tiramisu drawer. We’ll have a refrigerated drawer in the kitchen that will house a giant tray of tiramisu, so we can just pull it out and scoop to order. We’ll also offer chips and drinks. We want to keep it simple and small to start.

Related: This Kensington Market café makes some of the city’s best sandwiches

Wilson: Inside, we’re going for a grab-and-go business with a comfortable Italian bistro vibe. Andi’s dad built out the whole space for us, and we helped him where we could. It’s a family-built sandwich shop.

Larocca: There isn’t seating inside, but there’s a snacking ledge. And there are some tables outside where people can hang. We’re hoping to cultivate a community where customers stay for a short time, but long enough that we get to meet and engage with everyone before welcoming in the next group of people.

We’ve been here every day. We painted the walls. We learned how to level things out—we were all hands-on, and we’ve learned all kinds of useful skills. I think an exciting development of the interior is trying to bridge the gap between music and food.

Wilson: We have a nice turntable, receiver, amp and speakers. I’ll bring my vinyl collection and swap out records over time. To have a good experience in a space, the physical set-up matters. We’re lucky to have beautiful windows and a great corner location, but it’s also about the vibe and the music that’s playing and how that all makes you feel. As someone who travels a lot and goes to different restaurants in different cities, the memories of being in the spaces are always informed by what music was playing. Those details matter to me.

Larocca: Social media is powerful. Charlotte has a loyal fan base and has tipped a lot of her followers off.

Wilson: The most rewarding part has been engaging with the community—seeing people get curious about what’s going on and being able to tell them we’re opening soon.

Liliani: The pop-ups were exciting, but we were just anxious to start making sandwiches again. We’d almost forgotten what it is we’re here to do. We’re not construction workers making a building—we make sandwiches.

Larocca: Working together as a group of four is exciting. We have to negotiate with one another a lot, but it also means everyone can step up and take on different roles. It helps that we trust each other and everyone is competent. I’m in charge of operations and business strategy, Kaitlyn is our chef, Paul coordinates our day-to-day operations, and Charlotte is our brand ambassador and vibe-check person.

Wilson: I do a lot of emotional check-ins with everyone. I’ve learned the importance of this by having bands and working on projects with other creatives.  I was talking to Matty Matheson, and he said the goal for any restaurant is just to feed people. It’s simple, but at the end of the day, we are serving them, and we have to make sure that we give them a positive experience. And to do that, we have to feel good too.

Liliani: We’re lucky  to have a lot of friends who already run successful small businesses. Everyone we’ve spoken to has a different point of view, and we’ve taken little nuggets from each one.

Wilson: One of my favorite parts of this whole process has been having the opportunity—or, rather, the excuse—to call up the owners of restaurants I’ve been going to for years. Not necessarily for advice but just to chat and get some understanding and feel the passion that a lot of people have for food in this city. I love passion in general, whether it’s for food or music.

Larocca: We’ve been working together on Tutto Panino for over a year now. Opening for business has been the easy part.

Tutto Panino, 100 Sorauren Ave., tuttopanino.com,, @tutto.panino