Faicco’s Pork Store
For more than a century, Greenwich Village denizens have frequented this gleaming-clean butcher shop run by three generations of the Faicco family, who treat pork like a painterly palette: They make sausages both spicy and mild, flavored with fennel and filled with broccoli rabe. Take a number at the counter and let your imagination and hunger run rampant. Fill your sesame hero with smoked mozzarella and ham, chicken cutlets or maybe piles of roast pork loin. It’s all delicious—and deliciously affordable. (260 Bleecker St. at Cornelia St., 212-243-1974)
Mike’s Deli
Representing the Bronx is this timeless institution located inside the Arthur Avenue Retail Market. Folks flock in droves to sample some of the 13 fancifully monikered hunger assassinators. The Mussolini assembles capicola, fontinella cheese and stinky anchovies; the King David combines sopressata with basil, roasted peppers and four-year-old parmesan; and the Big Mike Combo’s a stunning assembly of mortadella, ham, salami, capicola and aged provolone that’ll keep you satisfied long after the subway takes you home. (2344 Arthur Ave. between. 184th and 186th Sts., 718-295-5033)
Artichoke Basille’s Pizza & Brewery
Since its late-winter opening, this chandelier-decorated takeout pizza parlor has garnered a gold-star rep for pizza that’s drawn comparison to that holy house of slices, Brooklyn’s Di Fara. Equally astounding are Artichoke’s off-the-menu sandwiches. Ask sweetly and a counter guy will slit open a loaf of their crusty, steamy house-baked bread and load it with tender, olive-studded broccoli rabe coated in a blizzard of pecorino cheese that transforms the two-handed wonder from healthy meal to cholesterol-spiking splurge. (328 E. 14th St. between First and Second Aves., 212-228-2004)
Defonte’s Sandwich Shop
Venture deep into subway-less Red Hook to hit daytime-only Defonte’s, where you’ll stretch your mouth around monstrous, forearm-size sandwiches that once kept longshoreman well-fed. Ditch the calorie counter before sinking your incisors into belly-stretchers like the potato-and-egg hero or, if you crave carnivorous delights, a Nick’s Special: homemade roast beef, sliced to order by the surly staff and layered on poofy bread along with creamy mozzarella chunks and—heart be still—fried eggplant. (379 Columbia St. at Luquer St., Red Hook, 718-855-6982)
Photo by Elizabeth Weinberg
