Delillo’s Pastry Shop
Destination: Delillo’s Pastry Shop
Add: 606 East 187 Street, Bronx, New York 10458.
Tel: (718)367-8198
The front of DeLillo's pastry shop.
My first visit to Delillo’s Pastry Shop took me by surprise. I had been looking forward to visit a pastry shop with our Belmont group members ever since we started working on this project. Among all the bakeries and pastry stores on Arthur Avenue, I decided to visit Delillo’s because of its cozy décors and soothing Italian music. Although the floor plan for this tiny shop is fairly simple—six square tables lean close up to the left wall, a long display counter for the pastries extends to the end of the store, and a narrow walkway stretches down the middle of the store—I sure enjoyed my visit to Delillo’s. When I entered, the Italian music in the background caught my attention. The antique tiles and wall hangings conjure up sentimentality and nostalgia for the Italian homeland that added to the cozy and casual ambiance that captured the overall vibe of Belmont.
The next most exciting part in the store was the varieties of cookie inside the display counter, followed by the store’s famous homemade gelato. When I was on line, a couple ordered a dozen huge flaky lobster tail pastries to be wrapped nicely because they would mail the pastries to their daughter in Oregon as her birthday present. That scene really reminded me of the New York Times article about Stella D’Oro cookies that functioned as the bridge to connect people who shared the same dietary needs from different states: a friend from New York would ship Stella D’Oro cookies to her friend in Texas.
Cappuccino from DeLillo's.
- Seats line the left wall (a large mirror) of the shop.
As I ordered a cup of cappuccino and a cream puff, I observed many tiny details inside the store. I found rainbow cookies that were the size of my palm at the corner of the display counter! Finding these traditionally-Albanian cookies in an old-fashioned mom-and-pop Italian bakery truly highlighted the growing Albanian population in the Belmont neighborhood and the adaptation of a traditional store to accommodate the needs in an ever-changing immigrant neighborhood. Other than that, Delillo’s has a multi-ethnic customer group ranging from Italians, Albanians and Hispanics. It seemed that the locals accepted Delillo’s as the town’s favorite, as Delillo’s adjusted itself to cater to the changing needs in the community. This mutually beneficial relationship between business and consumer created a close bond in the community as each culture welcomes the existence of other cultures.
Beautiful DeLillo pastries sit behind a glass pane.
