People visit the Bronx for all kinds of reasons. Some come to see the zoo, others to catch a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. The spectacular Botanical Gardens draws people from all over the world, as does Poe Cottage, the restored house that was the poet Edgar Allan Poe’s last home. My friends and I, however, go to the Bronx for food.
Covering 42 square miles (106 square kilometers) the Bronx is the northernmost of New York City’s five boroughs, and the only one that is actually part of the mainland. The first European settlers arrived in the Bronx in 1639, naming their new homeland for Jonas Bronck, a Dutchman who established a large farm on a site he purchased from Native Americans. Thousands of immigrants from all over the world flooded into the borough around the beginning of the 20th century when the subway line was expanded to connect the Bronx to Manhattan, and another influx of emigres poured in at the end of World War I. Today, the Bronx includes some 12 million people of varied cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and with neighborhood food stores and restaurants reflecting this diversity it’s hard to think of any item from the world’s larder that can’t be found in the Bronx. What my friends and I are seeking on this warm sunny day is Italian fare. There are seven of us on this gastronomic quest, and our destination is Arthur Avenue.
Its admirers call Arthur Avenue “the gastronomic paradise” — cucina paradiso. It actually extends for a few blocks around the intersection of Arthur Avenue and East 187th Street, in the Bronx’s Belmont neighborhood. This is not a gourmet tourist attraction like, say, Boston’s Faneuil Hall. It does not have the magnetism of Paris’ old Les Halles, or the charm of any open-air marche or farmers’ market you’ve ever been to. Arthur Avenue is a uniquely urban and somewhat gritty collection of shops and restaurants that specialize in Italian-American foods. Many cities in North America have a “Little Italy” neighborhood, but Arthur Avenue is undoubtedly the best and most authentic of them all.
We arrive at about half past 10 in the morning. Our first stop is for coffee at the Arthur Avenue Cafe, where the espresso and cappuccino may not be quite as magically delicious as Italy’s best, but rich, dark and invigorating, it’s close. Thus fortified, we make our way across the street to the Calabria Pork Store, a veritable mecca for sopresate, sausages, capicollo and the like. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of different kinds of salami — all made on the premises — hang from the ceiling, prompting one aficionado in our group to observe that this must be what stalactites in heaven look like.
Salami calls for bread, right? At Addeo Bakery, on the corner of 186th and Hughes, we pick up a loaf of country bread and some seeded breadsticks, as well as a bag of chianetta di grano. These savory whole-wheat biscotti look somewhat like small bagels, but they are crunchier and are wonderful to nibble on with a glass of wine. Then we make a stop at Borgatti, where sheets of homemade pasta are fed into hand-cranked machines, and where customers can specify exactly how wide they want their noodles cut. Well provisioned now with fresh ravioli and linguine, we amble over to the Arthur Avenue Market.
In 1940, New York’s Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, built the Arthur Avenue Retail Market at 2344 Arthur Avenue to give the street vendors an indoor space sheltered from the cold Bronx winter. Seven years after that historic event, Michele Greco left his native Calabria with $100 in his pocket. He migrated to New York, where he found a job at Gennaro’s grocery store in the Bronx. Eventually he married the boss’s daughter and moved into the Arthur Avenue Retail Market and opened Mike’s Italian Deli. This was some 50 years ago. Today, Mike’s son David stands behind the counter regaling customers with a stream of humorous banter just like his father did, as well as slicing up the best imported and house-made cheeses and cured meats to be found this side of Italy. If Mike himself happens to put in an appearance he may delight the crowd by belting out an impromptu Puccini aria.
We stagger out of the market weighed down by shopping bags filled with chunks of Parmigianno Reggiano each the size of Mount Vesuvius, containers of fresh mozzarella (made daily by the Grecos), and reams of thinly sliced speck, the ultimo prosciutto. We’ve also got olives, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil and packets of imported dried pasta. But now that our eyes and olfactory senses have been so deliciously stimulated, our taste buds are begging to be satisfied as well. With that goal in mind, we stash our provender in the cars and head for Roberto’s.
Luckily, we’ve reserved a table, for the popular hangout, with its cheerful mustard walls and country-style cuisine, is packed. Lunch gets off to a succulent start with orders of shrimp, scallops and cauliflower tossed together with crisply sauteed breadcrumbs. Little ear-shaped orchietta pasta is laden with proscuitto, fresh peas and buffalo mozzarella, and the Risotto Al Mare is just about perfect, brimming with ultra-fresh shellfish plus a hefty hit of garlic tamed by creamy rice. After pouring over the impressive list of Italian wines we treat ourselves to a bottle of 1999 Banfi “Excelsius,” a luscious Tuscan blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.
It is mid-afternoon when we finally push ourselves away from the table. Sono Sazia, I am pleasantly satiated — but we aren’t finished yet. Italian desserts seldom smite me, but at Egidio, a pastry shop that has been in business for almost a century, we polish off chocolate cannoli that are so delicious we order another round of the petite treats to take home.
And that is where we’re now headed — “home, ” or in this case, the beach house where we’re all spending the next few days together. Meal preparations are a community activity, with everyone pitching in to chop, dice, slice, peel and grate. One of us wraps chunks of melon in prosciutto, while another slices tomatoes to layer with the fresh basil and mozzarella. Sumptuous pillows of cheese-filled ravioli are doused with tomato sauce and spiked with olives and capers. Linguine is laced with fresh baby clams and garlic. We feast on figs stuffed with fresh ricotta, on roasted eggplant showered with Parmesan, on pork sausages and baby-back lamb ribs hot off the grill, and, of course, we open many bottles of vino. Sound decadent? Yes, but as the Italian proverb goes, “A ogni ucello il sua nido e bello” — We are put here to live, not exist.
USEFUL NUMBERS:
— Arthur Avenue Merchants and Shops: www.arthuravenuebronx.com.
— Roberto Restaurant, 603 Crescent Avenue, 718 733-9503, www.robertobronx.com.
