New York's Arthur Avenue: An Amazing Foodie Destination
Known as 'Littly Italy of the Bronx,' the neighborhood is rich with antipasti, cheeses, meats and a variety of delectable treats
The displays and the aromas in the market on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, New York are intoxicating.
The air is redolent with garlic, fresh basil and the sweet smell of sausage and peppers. Colorful deli stands are filled with plump focaccia breads, ready to serve as the pillowy base for layers of provolone, prosciutto, hot peppers and breaded eggplant topped with a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette. There are buckets of briny green and black olives, long salamis strung over the meat counters and round bocconcini balls just begging to be taken home.
Welcome to Arthur Avenue, also known as the Belmont area or the "Little Italy of the Bronx." According to the "Arthur Avenue Cookbook," the area is "a unique, living memorial to the labors and determination of a vital community of Italian-American immigrants." In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Italian families moved to the area from Lower Manhattan, setting up pushcarts and shops, creating a tight-knit community.
You can fill your belly and then fill your shopping bags.
The centralized Arthur Avenue Retail Market, patterned after the old-school European open-air markets, was set up by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1940 to provide an official gathering place for the huge number of pushcart vendors peddling their foodstuffs.
Now more than 80 years old, the market is filled with stands housing food purveyors selling antipasti, cold cuts and sandwiches, Scungilli salad, panzanella and salads, originating from Sardinia, which combine artichokes, lemon juice, olive oil, shredded radicchio and bottarga, a salted and cured fish roe pouch.
To drink, there are bottles of bitter lemon sodas, tiny cups of espresso and craft beers from the relatively new Bronx Beer Hall situated within the market. You can fill your belly and then fill your shopping bags. Vegetables, fruits, plants, flowers and seed packets from Italy as well as a vast selection of canned and packaged Italian products are also for sale. The market is also the home of the factory of La Casa Grande Cigars, which makes hand-rolled cigars.
If you have visited Arthur Avenue, you may have been lucky enough to spot Frank Sinatra, Clint Eastwood, Cher or Liza Minnelli, all of whom have been known to escape the high-end restaurants of Manhattan to enjoy a simple but scrumptious meal at one of the traditional "red sauce" Italian restaurants.
Like the former New York Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, as well as Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher, they might have dined at Mario's restaurant, where "The Godfather" filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola wanted to shoot scenes. (The owner refused, wanting the establishment to be known for delicious food and a family-oriented atmosphere rather than for grisly mob murders.)
The celebs may have begun their meal with pasta e fagioli (a soup made with short pasta and beans prepared with prosciutto and parsley), baked manicotti shells filled with ricotta and herbs and enveloped in a flavorful tomato sauce, served with a side dish of sauteed broccoli rabe with garlic and accompanied by a bottle of Chianti Classico Reserva or a Cabernet Sauvignon. Most likely, the dinner finale was a frothy cappuccino and a panna cotta or an affogato, vanilla gelato topped by a shot of espresso.
Rock star Dion DiMucci of Dion and the Belmonts, who was born in the area, named his band after a local street, Belmont Avenue. Actor Chazz Palminteri was born and raised there, as was author Don DiLillo. Joe Pesci's acting career was launched after he was discovered by Robert De Niro at a neighborhood eatery.
Famous for Food
Today, Arthur Avenue is a foodie's paradise, the streets lined with cheese shops, bakeries, pork stores, a shop specializing in homemade pasta and a sidewalk oyster bar. Many of these businesses have been owned by the same families for decades. There are also several shops selling espresso machines, garlic presses and hand-painted serving platters from the Amalfi coast.
Biancardi's, a butcher shop first opened in the 1930s, has whole lambs or goats and disembodied sheep heads hanging in their windows, and offers a great variety of unusual meats including pig livers, tripe, wild boar and lamb kidneys.
Many of these businesses have been owned by the same families for decades.
Calabria Pork Store, home of the world famous "sausage chandelier," sells dry sausage with fennel seeds, garlic and wine sausage, guanciale, extra hot soppressata and a variety of pork products.
Until recently, the majority of food shops have always been owned by Italians, except for Teitel Brothers, which in 2025 will be celebrating its 110th anniversary on Arthur Avenue. Run by four generations of the same Jewish Austrian immigrant family, most of whose families resided in an upstairs apartment, the corner store is marked by a Star of David in the tile work at its entrance.
Teitel Brothers has an overflowing outdoor display of products, including huge tins of imported olive oils and canned tomatoes in many styles (pureed, whole peeled, crushed). Inside, floor to ceiling, find anchovies and capers packed in salt, dried Italian oregano, pasta in a variety of shapes and cans of Sicilian tuna, among hundreds of other products.
Although its essential character has not completely changed, the neighborhood is now home to many Albanians along with Mexicans and Central American immigrants. Along with the more traditional Italian restaurants and pizza places, you can find taquerias and Albanian restaurants serving veal dumplings in garlicky yogurt sauce and pasul, a traditional white bean stew cooked with air-dried beef.
In 2016, the American Planning Association paid tribute to iconic Arthur Avenue, naming it one of America's greatest streets.
My beloved brother-in-law Ralph Kenneth "Ken" Cosentino, a Connecticut-born talented home cook and proud first-generation Italian-American of Calabrian descent, loved Arthur Avenue, and used to go there often, chatting in line with other shoppers who had driven from miles away to purchase the freshest fish, the best cuts of meat and the gooiest pastries.
Sadly, Kenny passed away almost three years ago and our holiday celebrations and Sunday afternoon dinners will never be the same. Whenever my husband and I go for an Arthur Avenue fix, I still envision Kenny standing in the market, bags filled to the brim with newly purchased olive oils, aged balsamic vinegars and pungent cheeses, happily munching on an Italian hero stuffed with Prosciutto di Parma, mortadella, sweet and hot peppers and thick slabs of mozzarella.
Other Food Favorites
Here are a few other wonderful finds on Arthur Avenue:
- More than 40 varieties of pasta, many of which you’ve probably never heard of, including trofie, chitarra, casareca, fregola, cavatappi and paccheri are available in the various shops and stalls.
- Unusual things to bring home include culatello, an aged, cured meat known as known as “King of Italian charcuterie,” domestic guanciale, and n’duja, a bright orange spreadable sausage, similar to pate.
- In one of the several butchers located on Arthur Avenue, you can buy pig livers, lamb kidneys, tripe, wild boar and cotechino, a rich-tasting Italian boiling pork sausage, often cooked with lentils by Italians on New Year's Day.
- Italian cheeses for sale include burrino, a round orb of provolone stuffed with butter, trecia, a form of dried mozzarella, mascarpone, scamorza and gorgonzola.
- Breads available at the enticing bakeries dotting the streets include jalapẽno cheddar, olive bread, semolina, fennel raisin, and cranberry walnut as well as the traditional ciabattas and focaccias
In 2016, the American Planning Association paid tribute to iconic Arthur Avenue, naming it one of America's greatest streets, an honor given to areas which have a significant historical and cultural impact.
Before or after an outing to this amazing food destination, you can also visit the neighboring New York Botanical Garden, offering 250 acres of curated and wild foliage as well as seasonal exhibitions that join the permanent collections. The Bronx Zoo, one of the largest wildlife conservation parks in the United States, and, of course, Yankee Stadium, where the Bronx Bombers play to crowds of loyal cheering fans, are also nearby.
