"I was raised with a quiet reverence for fresh bread-and a louder reverence for the people who made it. My grandfather grew up in Brooklyn's Bay Ridge neighborhood. Now living in Long Island, he still makes the trip into the borough's deepest corners before every holiday to pick up prosciutto bread from Mazzola Bakery. Even during my 12-year stint as a vegetarian, when that bread arrived-fresh, salty, crackling, rich with lard-I ate it anyway."
"Every week, shoppers across boroughs and state lines return to Italian delis all over New York City-especially, to Brooklyn for the real old-school gems: places like, Lioni's Italian Heroes for fresh mozzarella and Carlo's Grocery for homemade cooking in Bensonhurst; Defonte's in Red Hook for fat Italian sandwiches; Carroll Gardens' Mazzola Bakery for the lard bread, Caputo's Fine Foods for freshest meats and cheeses, and Court Pastry for Italian sweets, Sfingis, cannoli, and zeppoles."
"These delis are among the last active threads linking Brooklyn to its Italian immigrant heritage. By 1930, Italians were the largest immigrant group in the borough, especially in Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, Bensonhurst, and Bay Ridge. Although these neighborhoods have since radically changed, many delis have managed to stick around. While chain stores and algorithm-driven restaurants scale by replicating, these spaces survive by keeping their passed-down traditions, and hence, are irreplaceable."
Brooklyn's Italian delis preserve immigrant culinary and community traditions, drawing steady local and regional customers with distinctive breads, sandwiches, cheeses, and sweets. Longstanding shops such as Lioni's, Carlo's Grocery, Defonte's, Mazzola Bakery, Caputo's Fine Foods, and Court Pastry maintain handmade recipes and service rituals that resist replication by chains and algorithm-driven restaurants. These delis remain concentrated in neighborhoods where Italians were once the dominant immigrant group—Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, Bensonhurst, and Bay Ridge—and continue to operate as living cultural threads. Family loyalty, holiday rituals, and sensory appeal keep these establishments busy and culturally significant.
Read at Conde Nast Traveler
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