Arthur Avenue: The Bronx's Real Little Italy

The Arthur Avenue Retail Market

Start at the covered market on Arthur Avenue, just south of East 187th Street. It was built in 1940 by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, himself the son of Italian immigrants, as part of a citywide program to move pushcart peddlers off the streets and into clean, covered markets. More than eighty years later, it still has the feel of an Italian indoor market.

Inside you'll find counters selling cured meats, cheeses, fresh produce, olives, housewares and more. The market is also known for its hand-rolled cigars, made on-site by skilled rollers, and for Mike's Deli, where hero sandwiches are built on crusty bread with a generosity that borders on reckless. Grab a stool, order an eggplant parm hero and watch the neighborhood go by.

The shops: bread, cheese, pasta and pork

The real magic of Arthur Avenue is its specialty shops, many of them family-owned for several generations. Just follow your nose. A few long-established names to look for:

• Bread bakeries. Madonia Brothers Bakery, on Arthur Avenue for about a century, is famous for its crusty loaves, olive bread and cannoli filled to order.
• Fresh mozzarella. At Casa Della Mozzarella, mozzarella is made fresh daily. Buy it the same day and don't even think about putting it in the fridge. Neighboring Calandra's Cheese has been closed for renovation, so check whether it has reopened before you go.
• Fresh pasta. Borgatti's Ravioli & Egg Noodles on East 187th Street has been making ravioli and hand-cut noodles since the 1930s.
• Italian groceries. Teitel Brothers, founded by a Jewish family more than a century ago, is a wonderland of imported olive oils, tinned fish, pasta, cheeses and cured meats.
• Pork stores. Arthur Avenue's butchers sell house-made sausage, soppressata and, around the holidays, whole lambs and suckling pigs.

Arthur Avenue or Mulberry Street?

Both are worth seeing, for different reasons. Mulberry Street in Manhattan is a few historic blocks packed with red-sauce restaurants, a great place to learn the story of Italian immigration in the city. Arthur Avenue is where you'll find a living Italian food economy, with more shops than restaurants and a local crowd. Our guide to eating through Chinatown, Little Italy and SoHo covers the Manhattan side.

Save room for dessert

You can't leave Belmont without something sweet. The neighborhood's pastry shops, some dating back to the early 1900s, turn out cannoli, sfogliatelle, rainbow cookies, biscotti and seasonal specialties like zeppole for the Feast of St. Joseph in March. Order an espresso, stand at the counter like a local and take a box of cookies home for later.

Make a day of it

Arthur Avenue sits right next to two of the Bronx's great attractions, so it's easy to build a full day around lunch. The Bronx Zoo, one of the largest city zoos in the country, is a few blocks east. The New York Botanical Garden, with its Victorian glasshouse and 250 acres of gardens, is just to the north. And Fordham University's Rose Hill campus, with its Gothic stone buildings, is right across Fordham Road.