Eating

Lucibello's Italian Pastry Shop

935 Grand Ave.
New Haven, CT
(203) 562-4083

It's not just that Lucibello's pastries are a sweet pleasure to indulge in. It's that you get the sense there's something real in these desserts, real ingredients, and that you probably wouldn't be able to replicate them in your own kitchen. That is, unless you had an Italian grandparent particularly skilled at baking. Lucibello's recipes have been handed down for generations: 2009 marks the bakery's 80th anniversary. "We keep up with all the overall traditions from 80 years ago," says owner Peter Faggio, who grew up in the business his family has run for four decades. "We try to use the same ingredients. Everything is made by hand; everything is from scratch." Faggio sees consistency as one of the main reasons people like Lucibello's, a bakery that manages to stand out even in a neighborhood full of Italian-American culinary institutions. For their customers, Faggio says, "it brings back memories of when they were young. They come back years later and it's still the same."