How to pronounce bruschetta

Short answer: say broo-SKET-uh (/bruˈskɛtə/), with the stress on the middle syllable. The sch is "sk", as in school. That's the first or only pronunciation in Cambridge, Oxford Learner's Dictionaries, American Heritage and Dictionary.com. In Italian it's broos-KET-tah, /brusˈket.ta/, with a longer T. broo-SHET-uh is widespread in the US, and Merriam-Webster lists it first, but it isn't the Italian sound.

Listen

This speaker says broo-SHET-uh, the version Merriam-Webster lists first. For broo-SKET-uh, put a K right after the S, as in school.

Is it broo-SKET-uh or broo-SHET-uh?

Both bruschetta pronunciations are in English dictionaries, in a different order:

Merriam-Webster is the only American dictionary we checked that puts broo-SHET-uh first. The American Heritage Dictionary asked its Usage Panel of nearly 200 writers and scholars about the word. A large majority accepted both pronunciations, but on which one they preferred, the panel split almost evenly.

In 2017 a caller to the public radio show A Way with Words who grew up speaking Italian said a waiter had corrected her K. The hosts, Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett, agreed that "sh" is widespread in the United States but sided with the K, since the word hasn't been fully anglicized. As one of them put it, it's "better to side with the people who make the food".

In 2025 the Australian restaurant group Italian Street Kitchen said bruschetta topped its list of the Italian dishes Australians ask Google how to pronounce. That's search data, not a scientific survey. The group's Italian-born head chef calls broo-SHET-ta a mistake.

Our advice: say broo-SKET-uh. It's the Italian sound, and it comes first in every dictionary above except Merriam-Webster and COBUILD. broo-SHET-uh is in dictionaries, so it isn't wrong in English, but some listeners will hear it as a mistake.

Why is bruschetta pronounced with a K?

Because of Italian spelling. Two rules work together:

• sc before e or i is "sh", as in prosciutto (pruh-SHOO-toh) and crescendo (kruh-SHEN-doh).
• An h keeps the K. Italian writes ch before e and i for a hard K, as in Chianti, zucchini and gnocchi. So sch is "sk", like the sch in English school.

English readers also know sch from words like schlep, where it's "sh", and the hosts of A Way with Words think that's where broo-SHET-uh comes from.

The word comes from central Italian dialect. Treccani, the Italian dictionary, and American Heritage trace it to the Roman word brusco, "toasted" or "charred", from the verb bruscare, "to toast"; Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com say Tuscan. The ending -etta is a diminutive. Merriam-Webster dates the first known use in English to 1954, the year the food writer Elizabeth David described bruschetta in her book Italian Food.

How to say bruschetta step by step

1. Start with "broo", like brew, short and unstressed. In American English it can shrink to "bruh": Cambridge's US form is /brəˈsket̬.ə/.
2. Say "SKET" with stress, like sketch without the "ch". Keep the S and the K together, with no "sh".
3. End with a light "uh": broo-SKET-uh. For the Italian version, hold the double T a little longer and end on "ah": broos-KET-tah.

German speakers should remember that Italian sch is not German sch, which is "sh". Spanish speakers can read it as if it were spelled brusqueta: Wiktionary gives the Spanish pronunciation as /bɾusˈketa/.

Practice in a sentence

• Let's share the tomato bruschetta: broo-SKET-uh.
• For bruschetta, the bread is grilled and rubbed with garlic.
• Bruschetta and porchetta both hide a K behind the "ch".

Then try other Italian words where the h decides the sound. American pronunciations, from the Cambridge Dictionary:

For more Italian food and drink words, see how to pronounce gnocchi, bolognese and espresso.

What is bruschetta?

Bruschetta is an Italian antipasto: grilled bread rubbed with garlic and olive oil, usually with a topping. The version famous in the US, with diced tomatoes, is only one of several types in Italy. In Tuscany it's also called fettunta, "greasy slice", often served plain in November to taste the season's first olive oil. In the US, bruschetta can also mean the tomato topping sold in jars, a sense unknown in Italian. Crostini are thinner pieces of toast with a topping, though the two names are sometimes used interchangeably.

Sources

• Merriam-Webster — bruschetta and its etymology; Cambridge Dictionary — bruschetta and crostini; for the practice table, porchetta, zucchini, macchiato, prosciutto and crescendo
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries — bruschetta and bruschetta (American English)
• American Heritage Dictionary — bruschetta, with the Usage Panel note; Dictionary.com — bruschetta and crostini vs. bruschetta
• Collins — bruschetta (Collins English Dictionary, COBUILD, Webster's New World); Wiktionary — bruschetta, English, Italian and Spanish entries
• Treccani — bruschetta, brusco and bruscare; Wikipedia — Bruschetta, Italian orthography and German orthography
• A Way with Words — Is "bruschetta" pronounced with a K sound or an SH sound?, October 2017, and about the show and its hosts
• Italian Street Kitchen — Aussies' most mispronounced Italian dishes, April 2025; The Canberra Times — how to pronounce our favourite Italian dishes, June 2025