After a Yankees Game, a Quick Trip to the Bronx's Little Italy
Leave the baseball, take the cannoli
Emilia's 2331 Arthur Avenue Belmont Open since: ??? Price: $$ What to order: Sicilian meatballs, pork osso buco Jeff's Rating: 7.7/10 Marrone Pastry Shop 2349 Arthur Avenue Belmont Open since: 2006 Price: $ What to order: Giant rainbow cookie Jeff's Rating: 6.9/10 Two classic neighborhood institutions, but probably not the best the neighborhood has to offer
I almost never go to the Bronx – I can probably count on my two hands the number of times I’ve been. Definitely at least one trip to the Bronx Zoo with my mom as a kid. I clearly remember seeing an annoyed polar bear wondering why he had to sit outside in the summer while tourists watched him drift in and out of sleep. I’ve also driven through the area at least a few times, though I shudder even now thinking about the traffic on the Cross-Bronx Expressway (legend says there are still people stuck in that same traffic today).
But really, the vast majority of times I’ve been to New York City’s most northern borough have been when my roommate Mike invites me for Yankees games (he’s got season tickets). It’s a Saturday afternoon in April and now is one of those times. The weather is warming up, and America’s pastime has returned, so my roommates and I find ourselves on a Bronx-bound express D train hurtling north through the tunnels of Upper Manhattan. The train is full of the usual ne’er do wells heading up to the game: fratty guys in jerseys yelling “f*** Boston!” at the top of their lungs, a noticeably drunk man shouting epithets and talking to children in baseball caps about how he “speaks truth to power” while their parents look on in horror – it’s definitely a scene, and when we arrive at Yankee Stadium things are no different.
It’s truly a beautiful day outside the stadium, and I’m sure it is inside as well, but alas, we find ourselves unable to enter for some time. Columns of swarming fans clad in navy and pinstripes wrap around the stadium in chaotic fashion. We pick a line, only to realize we’d be lucky to make it inside by the seventh inning stretch. We pick another, and this one moves a bit faster. We get to our seats by the bottom of the second, maybe the top of the third, and settle in to enjoy what would be a 4-2 win over the Red Sox.
Since we were already in the Bronx, we decided to do as the Bronxites do and grab some dinner on historic Arthur Avenue, this borough’s answer to Manhattan’s Little Italy. It’s hard to say which neighborhood is more historic, or which has better food – I’m sure each has its fair number of fans who would happily yell about the other one on the D train, but making a true determination is above my ability to judge. What I can tell you though, is that the Bronx’s Little Italy is far more difficult to get to.
We arrive at the Fordham Road/188th Street Station, but our journey is just beginning. It’s colder out now, and though I know it’s because the sun has gone down, the thought flashes through my mind that we’re also at a higher latitude. We walk through the darkness towards our destination.
The roads are wider up here, and we see elements of suburbia beginning to creep in to the urban streetscape. My roommate Josh remarks that gas is cheaper at the multiple stations we pass. We cross Park Avenue, the same one that leads right up to the MetLife building in Midtown, though something tells me that the Upper East Side set doesn’t often come this far uptown.
We enter Belmont, the neighborhood that hosts Arthur Avenue and previously only known to me by my viewing A Bronx Tale. The neighborhood changes fast, with signs suddenly changing language from one block to the next. Stores that formerly bore Mexican flags on their windows now sport the Italian tricolore. We pass multiple packed barbershops, each with barbers chatting in Italian with their customers – a unique Saturday night tradition. And finally we arrive at Emilia’s, one of the many white-tablecloth and red-sauce Italian restaurants in the heart of the neighborhood, where Josh has secured us a reservation.
In The Godfather, Michael Corleone meets the duplicitous Virgil Sollozzo and the corrupt police captain McCluskey in “Louis’ Restaurant” in the Bronx, where he eventually kills them in cold blood for conspiring to assassinate his father. His advisor, Sal Tessio, remarks that it’s a “small family place, good food, everyone minds his business.” The same could be said for Emilia’s. Indeed, rumor has it that Francis Ford Coppola asked at least one of Arthur Avenue’s Italian restaurants to provide the set for the film’s famous murder scene but was turned down.
Murals of Italy line the walls and large tilework spans the floor and bar area. There are no QR codes here – just good, old-fashioned leather bound menus with options for red meat, poultry, or seafood. As trends have come and gone in Manhattan, the restaurants of Arthur Avenue have stayed true to classic Italian-American fare. And though we manage to avoid witnessing any homicides during dinner, we do come away with some delicious food.
First, some stuffed artichokes, served fried, with juicy flesh that we eat leaf by leaf. Then, some meatballs, served with a heaping pile of ricotta cheese and covered with a snowstorm of grated parmesan. Each of these are tasty, though if I had to pick between them the meatball edges out the artichoke by just a bit, both for ease of consumption and complexity of flavor.
Our entrees come quickly after the appetizers, and we plan to share. Though we order a few dishes, the pork osso buco is my favorite. It’s served on the bone, but quickly falls off if you even look at it funny with a fork in your hand. The sauce’ a chianti reduction that adds a sweetness that accentuates the natural flavor of the meat, collects at the bottom of the plate in a pool of deep red. The accompanying risotto is creamy and holds the sauce well for a balanced dish.
We opt to skip dessert at the restaurant, but only so we can walk a few storefronts down the avenue to Morrone Pastry Shop. Unlike Emilia’s, where dimness and dark color palettes rule, Morrone is all white walls and bright lights. Colorful pastries sit behind glass displays ranging from classic Italian desserts such as zeppole and cannoli to American staples like baked Alaska. I see the biggest rainbow cookie of my life, a triangle-shaped hunk the size of a paperback novel that I purchase and consume over the next few days (it’s soft, fluffy, and ideal). I also purchase a cannoli, and then a chocolate covered cannoli for good measure – in the coming days I discover the former is better than the latter, with both being a bit too sweet. And finally, a small square of Italian cheesecake – thick and creamy, with veins of saccharine raspberry sauce lending a bright pop of red to the beige surface.
A couple of hours after we arrived, we’re walking back out of Belmont, past the barbershops and the car mechanics, back across Park Avenue to the subway stop, where we wait for the Manhattan-bound D train to take us home. We wonder when we’ll get back to the Bronx’s Little Italy, but I do hope it’s sooner rather than later.
There’s a lot left to try.