The Real Little Italy? Bronx, New York

Manhattan has a fairly well known Little Italy around Mulberry Street which is quite popular with tourists but not so much with locals. Amazingly enough the last census could not find a single Italian born resident in the neighborhood. But up in The Bronx there is still a vibrant Little Italy around Arthur Avenue in the Belmont Area. The neighborhood is changing and becoming a little more diverse but still very much has that old world Italian feel to it.
I had decided to visit the New York Botanical Garden and followed it with a walk around what the locals call “Real Little Italy”.

    
There are plenty of places to do your food shopping butchers, bakers, mozzarella makers. I don’t know how well having whole suckling pigs in a store window would go over in Manhattan.
I really wanted to take some pictures of some of the old guard drinking their espressos outside the cafes but was not sure how well it would go over.There was certainly plenty of Italian being spoken and quite a few English swear words in the mix .
 
 
So I just had to make do with photographing the food and some of the housewares you can purchase.
I almost passed The Arthur Avenue Market which would have been  a shame because it was brimming with stuff to see and eat.
 
I had never seen cigars being hand rolled and these guys were so good at it. I love watching artisans at work.

I of course just had to try a gelato. I had tiramisu flavor an it was almost as good as what I had in Rome last year.
I actually need to visit this place again and do an entire blog post on it. An amazing amount of great food.The butcher stand was amazing. None of my photos through the glass came out well so I will return when it is less busy and I can play with my angles little.
I hope you enjoyed my little tour of one of New York's hidden gems.

I will share the photos from The Botanic Gardens in a post in the next few days.


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