Most tourists think that New York’s Little Italy is a few blocks in lower Manhattan filled with overpriced red-sauce spaghetti joints, tacky and vulgar t-shirts and knock-offs of designer duds. But knowledgeable New Yorkers know that the real Little Italy is in the Belmont section of the Bronx.
Arthur Avenue is the main street of Little Italy, packed with family run food shops and restaurants. Most of the places here not only sell Italian-style foods, they create it, including homemade cheese, sausage, pasta, bread, wine and pastry. The fish shops are operating-room clean, the bakeries warm and fragrant and the delis and cheese shops are brimming with pre-cut samples of their wares.
If you visit Arthur Avenue, you’ll eat a little, drink a little, taste a little, walk a little. Have a cannoli, a handful of roasted ceci, a stuffed zucchini blossom, a briny clam on the half-shell, a slice of pepperoni, a chunk of olive bread. Benvenuto! Mangia, mangia!
Little Italy in the Bronx 
Scungilli
Octopus
At sidewalk clam bar
Beef tripe
Inside pork store
Outside Teitel Brothers’ store
Sidewalk display outside Teitel Brothers’ store
Inside Arthur Avenue Retail Market: Thank you Mr. Capone
Rolling cigars at La Casa Grande Tobacco Company
Lamb heads inside Arthur Avenue Retail Market
In Arthur Avenue Market: Closed for my granddaughter
Inside Calandra Cheese
Cannoli filled while you wait
Inside Madonia’s Bakery
Chocolate covered cannoli
Rum cakes
Cream puffs
Eclairs
Arthur Avenue & E. 187th St.
It looks so inviting. A place where you can really feel alive.
Over 25 choices of Imported coffees from Italy.
Italian espresso machines which include fully automatic espresso machines to traditional espresso machines from leading manufacturers like saeco, gaggia, and Rancilio.
http://www.CeriniCoffee.com
I worked for Con Ed. for 35 years in the bronx at the Van Nest Shops. We would go to Arther Ave for lunch and to shop. What unforgettable memories your site has brought to mind, thank you.
Its like you read my mind! You seem to know so much about this, like you wrote the
book in it or something. I think that you can do with some pics to drive the message home a bit, but instead of that, this is wonderful blog.
An excellent read. I’ll definitely be back.