Walk east off the Grand Concourse, the bustling Bronx artery, past a Pentecostal church where on a recent Sunday, a hoarse, impassioned preacher led a bass-drums-piano combo, past the Sammy Sosa Deli and you reach Arthur Avenue, the heart of Belmont’s Little Italy. There, within a small square of blocks around the intersection of Arthur and East 187th Street, is an Eden for Italian food lovers. Manhattan’s Little Italy may practically be a parody of itself, but up in Belmont, the best traditions of Italian-American cuisine are thriving.
Arthur Avenue is a culinary throwback and all the more unusual in contrast to the neighborhoods surrounding it. The area is home to butcher shops, sausage makers, bakeries, pastry stores, cheese and pasta shops, all doing brisk business well into the age of the gourmet grocery. Many have been doing the same thing the same way for decades, the businesses passed down through two and three generations. Local business owners attribute this remarkable endurance to customers from outside the neighborhood, many of whom used to live in Belmont and now make regular trips in from the suburbs.
“The quality keeps people coming back,” said Chris Borgatti, the third-generation owner of Borgatti’s Ravioli and Egg Noodles (632 E. 187th St., 718-367-3799). As we talked, a customer in the store announced she was a former Belmonter living in Bayside, Queens. Later, at Mike’s Deli (2344 Arthur Ave. inside the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, 718-295-5033), I met a drug rep from Westchester who routes himself through the neighborhood at least once a month to pick up Mike’s sopressata ($12 per pound).
After sampling some of Arthur Avenue’s shops, it’s clear how the neighborhood engenders such loyalty. You may match the quality and service found in Belmont (at Di Paolo’s in Manhattan, for example), but nowhere is there such a dense concentration of old-school shops selling products with such an old-world commitment to quality.
The aforementioned Borgatti’s has sold homemade pasta since 1935. Their famous raviolis are only sold in three varieties: ricotta, meat or spinach ($11). Even after defrosting, the raviolis are perfectly textured, the ricotta rich and buttery. A few doors down is Casa Della Mozzarella (604 E. 187th St., 718-364-3867); this shop’s namesake cheese ($5.99 per pound) is as good as you’ll taste, each firm bite yielding to a delicious creaminess with just a hint of sweetness.
Continuing down Arthur Avenue, you find Biancardi’s Meat (2350 Arthur Ave., 718-733-4058) and the Calabria Pork Store (2338 Arthur Ave., 718-367-5145), two of New York’s oldest and best butcher shops, barely a block apart from one another. Biancardi’s beckons carnivores with a display window hung with sides of beef and pork (plus a lamb and a pheasant, just for decoration); Calabria is a pork fantasia, with deep-red lengths of sausage coiled temptingly in the display case, prosciutto on the counter—halved, its marbled, ruby-red face beckoning—and the whole place suffused with the gamy smell of dozens of sausages hung from the ceiling to dry.
Searching out ingredients for your own meal is probably the most rewarding way to experience Arthur Avenue, but there are plenty of choices for dining too. The neighborhood’s best pizza joints are Giovanni’s Pizza (50 E. 167th St., 718-538-2054) and Full Moon Pizzeria (600 E. 187th St., 718-584-3451). Full Moon is more of a takeout place. The slice ($2) is thin in the classic New York style, with a crispy, fresh crust that doesn’t sag, in part because the cheese and zesty sauce are applied in perfectly restrained proportion. Giovanni’s offers table service and a proper dining room, plus a full pizza joint menu. The pizza ($2 a slice), cooked in the neighborhood’s only brick oven, features an herb-dotted sauce with even more flavor than Full Moon’s, though the slice is gooey and sloppy enough to call for a knife and fork.
Another option for a casual meal is good ol’ Mike’s Deli. Mike’s sells cold cuts, cheeses and other deli items, but the draw here is the sandwiches; they derive their quality not just from the fresh, flavorful ingredients, but also a European-style commitment to balance. In a Mike’s sandwich, each ingredient contributes flavor and texture, but none dominates. The stripped down Michelangelo ($7.50) was a lesson in restraint: mild prosciutto and not-too-thick discs of creamy fresh mozzarella complemented by mandolin-thin tomato slices that practically disintegrated into the cheese and a touch of shredded lettuce in an oregano vinaigrette, and all of it lightly pressed, panini style.
For a really quick bite, try either Cosenza’s Fish Market (2354 Arthur Ave., 718-364-8510) or Randazzo’s (2327 Arthur Ave., 718-367-4139). Both are fishmongers that set up raw bars in the summer. Fresh clams (95 cents each) and four varieties of oysters, including fat, sea-salty Bluepoints and densely flavored Kumamotos, are sold à la carte on the sidewalk ($1.50-$1.79 each).
When you’re ready to sit down and relax, there are no fewer than four pastry shops where you can sip an espresso while snacking on cannolis, gelato and other dolci (prices vary). DeLillo’s Pastry Shop (606 E. 187th, 718-367-8198), opened in the 1920s by the grandparents of author Don DeLillo, competes with Egidio Pastry Shop (622 E. 187th St., 718-295-6077) as the neighborhood’s best.
Formal sit-down dining is a less certain proposition. There are plenty of choices, but as in Manhattan’s Little Italy, some are more tourist-ready than anything else. Umberto’s Clam House (2356 Arthur Ave., 718-220-2526) hypes bus tour readiness and schmaltzy entertainment on its website before ever mentioning the food, which unsurprisingly is decent but uninspired red-sauce Italian. Dominick’s (2335 Arthur Ave., 718-733-2807) is a favorite for many, in part because of its traditional neighborhood feel. A complaint, voiced frequently on foodie websites, is that the restaurant’s opaque pricing system—no menus except an obsolete one on the back wall, and no bill—allows the staff to gouge hapless diners. This all produced much hand wringing at our table, but our worry proved unfounded; we weren’t robbed blind.
A meal comprised of one large antipasto, a stuffed artichoke, caviatelle with broccoli rabe, brined veal with pickled peppers, pork chops pizzaiola, a side of broccoli rabe and a bottle of house wine totaled $124; more than the menu on the wall suggested and by no means cheap, but fair enough given the enormous family-style portions that stuffed seven of us silly. The food, too, was more inspired than I expected. Brined veal was the standout, prepared with a white wine garlic sauce that subtly blended its oaky, acidic base with bright notes of basil to delicately complement the mellow protein of the veal and the briny spike of the peppers.
On a first visit, the sheer variety of choices in Belmont may overwhelm you. Unlike in Manhattan’s Little Italy, where mediocre restaurants have replaced most of the family-run shops that are Belmont’s heart, the true culinary delights don’t come prepared on a platter. But this is the kind of place where exploring is its own reward.
