Ciao down in NYC
‘OFFICIAL’ LITTLE ITALY MAY BE IN MANHATTAN, BUT THE BRONX’S ARTHUR AVE. IS WHERE YOU’LL FIND THE REAL THING
If you asked most tourists — and many New Yorkers — where to find Little Italy within The Big Apple, they’d tell you Manhattan.
Of course, they’d be right: officially, NYC’s Little Italy sits just east of Soho. But while the area was, once upon a time, populated by Italian restaurants, business and, indeed, families, in 2015, there’s very little about the area that reflects its name — so much so that, in late 2014, the New York Post claimed in a story about the demolition of historic buildings in the neighbourhood that Little Italy is “on the brink of extinction.”
Nowadays, if you want Italian in NYC, you’re better off in the Bronx. Specifically, you’re better off on Arthur Avenue.
Or rather, IN Arthur Avenue, the neighbourhood also known as Belmont (also the name of a main thoroughfare in the area) or the Little Italy of the Bronx, which was populated by a wave of Italian families who moved there from Manhattan in the late 19th and early 20th century. The area’s namesake streets are two of its main arterials, and the entire neighbourhood comprises about six square blocks of historic terrain, mostly taken up by food retail — making it one of New York City’s most delicious secrets.
While January isn’t the most hospitable time to think about a trip to New York from a weather perspective, it’ s a good one for the bank account — exchange rate and all. Winter is low season, and with it comes all kind of bargains, from two- for- one Broadway tickets, to discounted dining during restaurant week. Hotel rates average 50 per cent less during January and February, and besides a little cold weather will just make that giant cannoli all the sweeter.
On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I met Susan Birnbaum, a New York City native, Bronx resident and certified tour guide, for a walk around Belmont. Birnbaum, with her fiery red hair, pleasantly brash wit and diminutive stature, is just this side of what you might call a “New York City character” (which I say in the utmost flattering sense possible). She’s also a walking history textbook, making her an ideal companion for a tour of Arthur Avenue, which is as historic as it is well-suited to the culinary tourist, in most cases for the same reasons: the shops.
Our first stop is Borgatti’s, a noodle and ravioli shop that has been in operation since 1935. Chris Borgatti runs the shop, which was set up by his grandparents after they moved to New York City from Emilia-Romagna, Italy, then passed down to his father, Mario, the second youngest of six Borgatti boys. On the day we stop in, Borgatti is working behind the counter alongside his wife and son, Chris, Jr. — “The fourth generation,” Chris Sr. says proudly. As the tiny shop fills with eager customers — mostly regulars, some unafraid of vocalizing their irritation at the impromptu interview blocking their path from the door to the ravioli — Borgatti pulls photos off the wall to show us: one of his grandparents on their 50th wedding anniversary in 1975; another features his father and five uncles at what he guesses might have been an Arthur Avenue merchant’s dinner.
“If you had a dollar in your pocket in 1935, you could buy 100 ravioli,” Borgatti says. “Now it’s $14. My father would say, ‘ Make it like nonna.’ And that’s what we still do today.”
So much is also the case with every shop around Arthur Avenue, and therein lies its appeal: using the word “authentic” to describe a culinary experience can be trite and is usually fractious, but in the Bronx’s Italian enclave, it’s hard to think of a better one.
Birnbaum suggests we head next to Addeo, a bakery just around the corner. On the way she points out Joe’s Italian Deli, known for its fresh mozzarella. Some locals say it makes the best sandwiches, Birnbaum says, but others swear by nearby Mike’s Deli, whose eggplant parmesan recently beat Bobby Flay’s on the TV show Throwdown. At Addeo, we sample homemade breadsticks and peruse lard bread, which is simply ( and perfectly) bread with pork baked right i n. For cannoli, Arthur Ave. Pasticierra can’t be beat — unless you ask someone who’s loyal to Egidio or Madonia.
You can i magine t he squabbles. In a two- mile radius where some of the businesses go back four or five (or six!) generations, allegiances are surely as common as they are unshakable.
But if there are two or three or four good places for everything on Arthur Avenue, from bread and cheese to espresso and pastry, there’s only one Calabria Pork Store. You can smell before you reach it, the distinctive, rich must of aged meat, but seeing is really believing: Calabria’s ceiling is hung with hundreds of links of fat, cured sausages, muting the light like salty stalactites growing in a cave out of some pork-lover’s fever dream. My allegiance is sworn.
No trip to the Belmont area is complete without a stop at the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, a covered bazaar of — you guessed it — bakeries, butchers and greengrocers, plus pantry staples and freshrolled Cuban cigars. But under its roof, some new life is being breathed into Belmont in the form of the Bronx Beer Hall. Right in the middle of the market and open till last call, it’s a craft beer hallcum- eatery that sources its ingredients from the neighbouring shops. Owner and co-founder Anthony Ramirez, a Bronx native, said he and business partner Paul Ramirez II hope that the beer hall will introduce — or reintroduce — non- Italians to Arthur Avenue, and to the Bronx at large.
Back at Borgatti’s, Chris Borgatti notes that, unlike Manhattan’s Little Italy, what Arthur Avenue has going for it is that the families stuck around. “Down there,” he says, meaning Manhattan, “it’s more commercial. Here, the businesses are family.”