Guanciale is one of those ingredients that turns up on Italian menus without explanation — listed confidently next to San Marzano and Pecorino Romano as though you already know what it is. If you’ve ordered an Amatriciana pizza and noticed something deeper going on beneath the tomato, or you’ve heard that guanciale isn’t the same as pancetta but couldn’t explain why, this is the place to find out.
At 170 Grammi Pizzeria in Surry Hills, guanciale appears across some of the kitchen’s most important dishes. Understanding what it is — and why Roman cooking specifically won’t substitute it — changes the way the whole menu reads.
What Is Guanciale?
Guanciale is Italian cured pork cheek. The name comes directly from guancia, the Italian word for cheek, which tells you exactly where it comes from: the jowl of the pig — the cheek and the soft neck below it — not the belly, not the back.
It is dry-cured with salt and black pepper, sometimes with chilli, rosemary, or juniper depending on the region and producer, then hung to age for around two to three months at controlled temperature and humidity. The result is a dense, deeply flavoured cured meat with a distinctive balance of lean meat and fat. And it’s that fat, more than anything else, that makes guanciale irreplaceable in Roman cooking.
The jowl carries more intramuscular fat than the belly, and that fat is structurally different. It’s softer at room temperature, melts at a lower heat, and emulsifies differently when rendered. In Roman cooking — where sauces are built on almost nothing, with no cream, no stock, no butter as a safety net — the fat from guanciale is doing the work that dairy does in other cuisines. That’s not a coincidence. It’s exactly why Roman cooks landed on it.
Guanciale vs Pancetta: Why Romans Won’t Swap Them
The most common question about guanciale is whether it can be swapped for pancetta. The short answer: not in Rome, and not in any dish where the fat is doing the structural work.
Pancetta is cured pork belly. It has its own merit and its own proper applications in Italian cooking. But its fat is firmer, its flavour profile is slightly different, and when rendered it behaves differently in the pan. Pancetta won’t emulsify the way guanciale does, and in a sauce built entirely on rendered fat rather than cream or butter, that distinction changes the dish noticeably.
The guanciale vs pancetta question also comes up in Australian kitchens where guanciale is harder to source — so pancetta is sometimes offered as a substitute in recipes. It produces something acceptable. It doesn’t produce the Roman original.
Bacon is further removed again. The smoking process, the sweetness of most commercial cures, and the different fat structure place it in a different category entirely from a Roman perspective. “Substitution” doesn’t really translate from Roman cooking’s point of view — the fat is either doing the right job or it isn’t.
How the Curing Process Creates the Flavour
Guanciale starts as the pork jowl — a cut that was historically undervalued precisely because of its high fat content. Once trimmed, it’s rubbed with a curing mix of salt, black pepper, and — depending on the producer — herbs and spices. Then it’s hung.
The hanging period does several things simultaneously. Moisture leaves the meat, concentrating the flavour. The fat undergoes a slow enzymatic breakdown that changes its texture and deepens its taste. The exterior develops a dry, firm rind that protects the interior during ageing. Minimum ageing sits at around two months; many producers run longer.
Well-made guanciale has a very specific quality when sliced: rich, a little funky in the way a properly aged cured meat is, deeply porky without being heavy. The difference between good guanciale and a lesser version is obvious once you know what you’re tasting — the inferior product smells mainly of salt and renders greasy rather than silky.
What to Look For When Guanciale Appears on a Menu
When guanciale appears on an Italian menu in Sydney or anywhere else, a few signals tell you how seriously the kitchen is taking it.
Look first at what it’s paired with. Guanciale used properly tends to appear in restrained preparations — fewer other ingredients, not more. An Amatriciana, a Carbonara, a Gricia: these dishes trust the ingredient to carry the flavour. A guanciale buried under five other toppings is often there for the name rather than the character.
Look second at whether the menu distinguishes between guanciale and pancetta, rather than grouping both under “cured pork”. A kitchen that makes the distinction is paying attention to the source, not just the category.
Third: notice whether the guanciale appears alongside DOP-certified companions. Guanciale next to Pecorino Romano DOP and San Marzano DOP signals a kitchen reading from the same page as Rome. The guide to DOP certification explains why those specific ingredients — not generic substitutes — produce the characteristic Roman result.
The Three Roman Classics That Depend on Guanciale
Three of the four canonical Roman pasta preparations are built on guanciale. The fourth — Cacio e Pepe — uses no meat at all, just Pecorino Romano and black pepper. The other three require the real thing, and each shows guanciale doing something slightly different.
Gricia is the oldest preparation and in many ways the most revealing. No tomato, no egg — just guanciale, Pecorino Romano, black pepper, and a splash of pasta water. There’s nothing to hide behind. The rendered guanciale fat has to carry the entire sauce, and in the hands of a kitchen taking it seriously, it does. Gricia is where you understand why Roman cooking insists on the specific cut rather than the general category.
Carbonara builds on the Gricia framework by adding free-range egg yolk. The fat from the rendered guanciale combines with the yolk — off the heat, with pasta water added gradually — until the sauce emulsifies into something smooth and glossy with no cream in sight. The guanciale fat is structurally essential: it’s what enables the emulsification that makes the sauce coat rather than pool.
Amatriciana introduces San Marzano tomatoes into the rendered guanciale base. The fat softens the tomato’s acidity; the Pecorino Romano adds salt and structure; the guanciale provides the backbone the sauce is built on. It’s a combination that falls apart at every point if the ingredients aren’t right — which is why the three components are rarely varied in serious Roman preparations.
Guanciale on the 170 Grammi Menu
At 170 Grammi, guanciale appears in several preparations across the dine-in menu, which gives you an unusual opportunity to experience the same ingredient behaving differently depending on how it’s been handled.
On the A’ Carbonara pizza, guanciale is laid on a white base with Pecorino Romano and a free-range egg yolk, then finished in the wood oven. The heat renders the fat into the crust; the meat crisps at the edges; the egg yolk sets across the surface. It’s the logic of pasta Carbonara applied to pizza — the same three core ingredients doing the same three jobs.
On the Amatriciana pizza, guanciale sits above San Marzano tomato and bakes until the fat runs down through the toppings. The balance of pork fat, tomato, and Pecorino Romano is the same balance that defines the pasta version. If you want to understand why the combination works, ordering both the pizza and the pasta Amatriciana on the same visit makes the logic clear.
The Supplì Amatriciana in the antipasti section takes a different approach: the guanciale is rendered until fully crispy and used as a textural component alongside San Marzano and Pecorino Romano cream in a Roman rice ball. It’s guanciale almost entirely as crunch — the fat rendered out, the meat concentrated.
The Maialina pizza is the most overtly pork-driven dish on the menu — guanciale alongside double smoked shoulder ham, pancetta, and Porchetta alla Romana. Here guanciale is one voice in a larger arrangement rather than the lead, but the contrast between the cuts on the same pizza is instructive if you’re paying attention.
For guanciale in the format it’s most classically known: the Rigatoni Amatriciana follows the Roman original closely, with the rendered guanciale fat forming the base the San Marzano sauce is built on.
👉 Book a table at 170 Grammi and try the A’ Carbonara or Amatriciana — the dishes that show exactly what guanciale is for.
Frequently Asked Questions
Guanciale is Italian cured pork cheek — made from the jowl of the pig, dry-cured with salt, black pepper, and sometimes herbs or chilli, then aged for two to three months. The name comes from guancia, the Italian word for cheek. It is the defining cured meat of Roman cooking.
Guanciale is made from the pork jowl; pancetta is made from the pork belly. Guanciale has a higher proportion of intramuscular fat, which is softer and melts at a lower temperature. In Roman pasta sauces — which use no cream, stock, or butter — guanciale’s rendered fat provides the texture that pancetta cannot replicate with the same result.
Technically yes, but the result will differ. Roman cooks specifically require guanciale for Carbonara, Gricia, and Amatriciana because the fat quality affects the sauce — its texture, how it emulsifies, and its flavour. In Rome, pancetta is not considered an acceptable substitute for these dishes.
Guanciale is rooted in Rome’s quinto quarto tradition — cooking with secondary cuts that wealthier buyers passed over. The pork jowl’s fat quality happens to be ideal for Rome’s style of sauce-making, which depends on rendered fat rather than cream or butter. Bacon — typically smoked and differently cured — produces a different flavour profile that doesn’t follow the Roman formula.
Guanciale is made from the cured and aged pork jowl, which includes the cheek and surrounding area. Fresh pork cheek (sometimes called pork jowl) is the uncured version of the same cut. They share an origin but are different products — guanciale has been dry-cured and aged, which transforms both the flavour and the fat structure considerably.
Guanciale features in several dishes at 170 Grammi, including the A’ Carbonara pizza, the Amatriciana pizza, the Maialina pizza, the Rigatoni Amatriciana, and the Supplì Amatriciana. Each preparation handles the ingredient differently — rendered and crisped, baked into a pizza base, or concentrated as a textural component.
