In NYC for a quick trip….heading back to Little Italy tomorrow for good food. Struggling to find “mob sites” to visit in LI other than Ravennite and Umberto’s. Any recommendations? Thanks!

You got Ferraras in Little Italy for Italian Pastries, Brooklyn for pizza and Massapequa Park, L.I. where Roy DeMeo and Carlo Gambino lived.

Ruggero Restaurant on Grand Street (Joe Zito, Curly Russo)
Casa Bella Ristorante - Mulberry St. (Mike Sabella, later Al Blast Gallo)
Luna's - Mulberry St (everybody)
Benito II - Mulberry St (Genovese crew)
SPQR - Mulberry St (Matty the Horse)
Chaira Mare Bar/eatery (everybody)
Little Charlie's Clam Bar (off Kenmare I think if I remember correctly)
La Rosa Bakery - Elizabeth St (Mike LaRosa)
Ferrara Pastry - Grand St
Roma Bakery - (Eli Zeccardi, Benny Cinquegrana)
Jimmy Red's Cheese Cake (Jimmy Red Caserta)
Il Cortile Ristorante - Mulberry St (Zookie Esposito)
Umberto's (Matty the Horse)
Vincent's Clam bar (Vincenzo Generoso)
Lanza's - First Ave
Rocco Restaurant - Thompson St

There was a thousand joints. Many are still there, many otters not. or in name only. All the ghosts of wise guys past. lol

And this is just in Lower Manhattan. There's a 1000 more

128 Mott St in now nearby Chinatown is the fictional Genco Olive Oil.

For food, and a better experience, I'd visit the Bronx Little Italy of Arthur Ave.

Umberto's moved since the hit. It was on Mulberry and Hester. Some other place there now.

SPQR gone long time now. Last I knew, it was a christmas tree shop or something.


If you're set on staying downtown, Butch-The-Hat's place is La Mela. Tony's Nuthouse is now something else on the Mulberry 270s.

SPQR, little Charlie’s, Ruggiero’s, Luna, and Lanza’s (now a Joe&Pats pizzeria, which may be worth hitting) are all closed.

Cafe Palermo on mulberry st is owned and operated by baby John DeLutro, whose family were all Gambino and he may also be (did time for heroin trafficking).

Honestly if you’re going to little Italy downtown you’re better off eating at some of the newer places like Rubirosa or Aunt Jake’s. Or grab some meats and cheeses from DiPalo and sit in a park soaking up the scenes. Since covid the area has seen way less traffic and much more homeless and mentally ill.

Over the last several decades whatever Italian restaurants operate in Little Italy are overpriced and 'touristy'

The days of getting true home cooked meals from authentic Italian kitchens at great prices is over. That was the big allure at one time. When the area was actually all "Italian" and it was a Little Italy.

Nowadays you can get better food for the most part at uptown places. And the prices are comparable.

IMO better (more authentic) places are in the outer boroughs of Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. Its a different neighborhood today. NO more Little Italy. Thats only a name. Today it's all plastic.

Yeah, I wouldn't eat anywhere in Little Italy, it's a tourist trap and most of the food is prepared by Mexicans, last time I ate there was the Festival of San Gennaro and I regretted it instantly. If you want good Italian food in Manhattan, you gotta go to Rao's but you can't ever get a table there so forget it. Arthur Ave in the Bronx is decent but if you want the best Italian food in NYC, you go to Carroll Gardens and Bensonhurst in Brooklyn.

Been to Arthur Avenue a few times. Get a lot of Italian goods there.

The first time i was in NYC, i immediately went to Little Italy to have something to eat. I don't remember which restaurant it was. i started talking in Italian to the waiter but the guy was latino and he did'nt understand so i disappointedly switched to English. So much for my Godfather fantasy... The food was not great.

During another trip, I went to a place I fogot the name of in Northern Little Italy (near the contempary art museum which i had visited) and I remember the place looked a bit dodgy. Maybe it was just me but I felt a weird vibe. I thought the joint was mobbed up. I looked it up and it turned out the place was previously run by Louis Consalvo (De Cav made guy) and i would'nt be suprised if it's still somehow connected to some wiseguy.

That was cafetal near Old St Pat’s. Not sure if that one is still open. Emilio Ballato on Houston St is very good, and has an old throwback look to it. On weekends it’s tough to get into due to being popular with actors, Obama, etc.

Spanish and Italian are 80% similar. Usually enough to get by easily. We will likely go down to San Gennaro next month. The wife loves it. Get us some sausage-n-peppers.

Cafetal, that's the name ! Weird place that was.

SalB, I actually speak Italian and Spanish and while it is true these languages have many similarities, I can assure you that a spanish speaker wouldn't understand much if he is spoken to in Italian at full speed (and vice versa). Now if it's written or if you pronounce every word slowly and clearly, it's another story, but in a normal conversation, it's more complicated.
The fact that i speak Italian with a French accent probably didn't help though.

Little Italy in New York was a major disappoint when I went there about 10 years ago. I think it stopped being an Italian area over 40 years ago, and as got the Mafia presence it seems to have faded away long ago too. Yes, a couple still own a place or two, but the days of the Ravenite and other places is long gone. I had expected a lot, maybe too much, but it's not what people expect. Tourists outnumber Mafia members about 1000-1.

All the Italians from that area sold out in the late 80s and early 90s to the Chinese.. Some of these people payed 25k for a tenement walk up in the 60s and were able to sell for a million in the late 80s and early 90s...can’t really blame them for that....smart move...

True. About thirty years ago I was trying to tell these two Puerto Rican women I would be back in twenty minutes. They didn't understand what I was saying so I tapped on my watch and said "venti minuti". They understood that and we all laughed.

There are guys left in the neighborhood. But for the most part these are guys (made or not) who don't have two cents to rub together. Many other money guys still venture into the neighborhood but live in SI, Bklyn, LI, NJ, etc. And either just visit the area, or own real estate and businesses that they operate there and hang out with old friends.

I took my brother down to Mulberry St. in 2001, before they changed the facade of the Ravenite and we were standing in front of it talking about Gotti and the Crew when this old man walked up to us and told us." I remember them, when they used hang out here." Needless to say we started pumping him for stories and got some cool anecdotes out of him, it could have been Lefty Ruggiero's son for all we knew. You're not going to see that too much anymore, it's all hipsters now. When I went for San Gennaro, I was eating a sausage and peppers sandwich on a stoop by Umberto's and some residents of the building came home and I had to move off the stoop to let them up. As they're passing, one dude looked down at me and fucking sneered like he was a superior metro-sexual. Word to my mother, the first thing I thought was "Motherfucker, do you know what went down here, not 50 feet from where your standing." I'll will drag your bitch ass off this fucking stoop and leave you where Crazy Joe died but being with my wife and not wanting to spend the night in the Tombs, I digressed.

Umberto's moved up the street and other side from the Gallo hit. Da Gennaro now on corner of Hester.