Hoboken's Best Bread

There are many opinions on what makes Hoboken bread—with its crusty exterior and chewy but not fluffy insides—so  delicious. Some claim it's the water in Hoboken, others say it's the coal-fired brick ovens, while others base it on the fact that the bread is hand-made, rather than stamped or assembly-line produced. Whatever school of thought you choose to follow, there's no denying that Hoboken bakes the best bread ever. And in the Mile Square, we're lucky enough to have as many as four bakeries that specialize in making the "staff of life."

Dominick Castellitto has been baking bread for more than 30 years at Dom's Bakery Grand at 506 Grand Street. He can be found there every morning, seven days a week, making the bread and putting the loaves into the 16 inches x 16 inches brick oven.

"I love making bread," Castellitto said. "What else am I going to do?"

When I was there, Castellitto was working alone, pulling the bread out of the ovens and waiting on customers, while a delivery man was loading up trucks. Castellitto said he estimates baking about 1,000 loaves a day, which the they sell in the store and deliver to such Hoboken eateries as, Dino & Harry's, Luca Brasi's Deli, Fran's Deli, Vito's and more.

"Whatever is left over, we send to the homeless shelter," Castellitto said.

Antique Bakery on 122 Willow Street has been owned by Ivan Rodriguez since 1987. Angie Pena has been working there for fifteen years and now manages the place.

Pena said Rodriguez bakes the bread, coming in at 7 p.m. and finishing about 4 a.m. every day. Antique also bakes approximately 1,000 loaves a day: round loaves, panelles, hero rolls, long French baguettes (or sticks as the old-timers call them), dinner rolls and foccacia bread.

As Pena pointed out, "(all Hoboken bakeries) make the same types of bread." The most popular for Antique are the long French baguettes and the pepperoni bread, Pena said. If there's anything left over, Antique sends it to a local farm for the animals. "For the pigs and cows, so it doesn't go to waste," Pena said. Antique wholesales its bread to local restaurants as well. You can be guaranteed fresh and delicious Hoboken bread whenever you go to Mikie Squared, Tutta Pasta, Trinity, Natural Plus, Anthony David's, Bin14, Imposto's, and other restaurants in town.

Danny Losurdo and his brother Nick bought Tony's Italian Bakery in 1975. Located at 410 2nd Street, it was just a bakery then. Said Losurdo, "We moved the ovens and created a deli."

Now it's Tony's Italian Bakery Deli and Liquors. The store does not wholesale its bread. "We bake approximately 900 loaves a day," Losurdo said, "which are sold in the deli and used to make sandwiches etc." Losurdo added that Tony's is the only bakery in Hoboken that makes Scala, a Sicilian bread, in addition to the usual breads. They also make fresh mozzarella and on Saturdays they make three types of foccacia breads, including one with olives and artichokes.

Marie's Bakery at 261 2nd Street no longer actually bakes bread in Hoboken, but for more than 100 years its brick oven on 2nd Street provided delicious bread to the Mile Square and beyond. Frank Sinatra was such a fan that he used to request that the bread be loaded onto his plane when it was at Teterboro. Marie's also provides bread to restaurants in Hoboken, including Four L's and Piccolo Roma, to name two.

Rose Domanski, who has worked at Marie's for more than 18 years, said that Marie's Bakery has been called the "grand dame of Hoboken bakeries" because it was one of the first. Now Marie's operates a storefront that looks like someone's kitchen, where you can buy the familiar French sticks, panelles, and dinner rolls that are fresh-baked daily and brought into Hoboken.