The factories of Hoboken’s industrial past may be a distant memory, but there are still places where products are Hoboken made. Keeping tradition alive, Fiore’s Deli House of Quality has made its creamy mozzarella, and Dom’s Bakery Grand, its crusty Italian bread, the same way for decades.
At Fiore’s, the day’s special is always the homemade mozzarella. “Of course mozzarella,” says owner John Amato. “Gotta have mozzarella.” Every week, the deli serves Virginia ham and mozzarella on Monday, corned beef and mozzarella on Tuesday, hot sausage and mozzarella on Wednesday, hot roast beef and mozzarella on Thursday, and tuna fish and mozzarella on Friday. Since it is Fiore’s most popular sandwich, the roast beef is made again on Saturday, when the line is often out the door. But the draw is really the cheese.
Fiore’s has been making mozzarella since 1913, when Alphonso Fiore opened the original milk and cheese store. His son, Joseph, added the deli after he took over the business in 1929. Amato got an afterschool job at Fiore’s as a delivery boy in 1950. Watching the older workers make the mozzarella, he says, mesmerized him. “That was a whole new aspect of life,” Amato says. Fifteen years later, he bought the place.
In the back, the kitchen is hot and moist. Steam rises from three large pots of water that never stop boiling. Dominick Vitolo, a mozzarella expert with 49 years of experience, cuts a large square from a huge slab of Polly-O brand cheese curd.
“It’s the best curd on the market right now, the most consistent,” says Amato, 79. The firm, moist block of curd is placed on top of the slicer before being pressed through it. The strips drop into a large metal bowl to be doused with hot water and stirred until it is cooked evenly.
The recipe is simple, says Amato, because the secret is in the technique. “It’s all according to the feeling in your hands,” he says. “Once you get that nice, silky feeling, that mozzarella is ready.” The cheese is stretched to extract excess moisture, then braided in a flash and dropped into ice water to cool. It’s placed in a saltwater brine right before it is taken to the front of the shop. The best part, says Amato, is when someone tries his mozzarella for the first time and loves it. “That’s the greatest compliment you could bestow on me,” he says.
Beyond the cheese, Fiore’s also makes two varieties of sausage—spicy and sweet—and a wide variety of sides, including cherry peppers stuffed with bread crumbs, banana peppers stuffed with prosciutto and provolone, sweet roasted peppers, octopus, artichokes, olives, and giardiniera (pickled) vegetables. The small storefront also carries imported provolone that Fiore’s ages for a year, and a selection of dry pastas and tomato sauces.
The Staff of Life
About two blocks away, Dom’s, with a tiny storefront wedged between apartment buildings, can easily go unnoticed; the bread cannot. Dom’s sells its Italian loaves and rolls to delis and restaurants all over town and all over New Jersey. But before any delivery can be made, work has to start early in the morning.
At 6 a.m., the front shop is dimly lit. The bustle is in the back, where an entire wall encloses the heart of the operation, a 16’ by 16’ coal-burning brick oven built 120 years ago. “You can’t build them anymore,” says owner Dom Castellitto, who bought the building in 1979 because of the oven. Since then, environmental regulations have cracked down on burning coal. “It’s not only the coal,” Castellitto says. “You can’t find a mason who can build one of them things.”
All around is the aroma of flour. In fact, there is some of the white stuff on almost everything. Castellitto and his workers use the Roman Gold brand. It is the first ingredient they pour into the industrial mixer, the only machine at the shop. Next they add the yeast, salt and what Castellitto considers the most critical ingredient, Hoboken water. “Hoboken water is the best for bread and cakes,” he says. He has no idea why. “Don’t ask me what’s in the water. All I know is that it’s good.” After the dough is made, it is massaged into shallow wooden boxes to rise for about an hour or more. Then it is cut and weighed into equal parts and rolled into softball-size spheres to rise again and later be worked into long baguettes.
Standing ready at the oven, Guadalupe Flores, who has been working at the bakery for more than 20 years, places the loaves on a very long lemon wood paddle and uses a small knife to make three slits on top of each one, an Italian tradition. He slides the bread into the oven and organizes it in angled rows and waits for it to bake for about 20 minutes. The bread is then taken out and placed in crates to cool, crackling all the way to the shelves. Finally, the bread is placed behind the counter or in long brown paper bags for delivery. “It’s a pretty simple operation,” says Castellitto. Dom’s makes about 800 loaves of bread a day. Why is it so popular? “Because it tastes good,” says Castellitto.
And there’s no messing with what works.—07030