A staple of Italian villages is the alimentari, a hybrid gourmet emporium, often found around the piazza, where locals shop for select meats, cheeses, produce, wines, jarred items, prepared foods (to eat in or take out), and basic provisions such as milk and eggs. Configured to the American vernacular, an alimentari would be a hopped-up bodega or a Mom & Pop store.
In the U.S., an alimentari is a rarity, unless you happen to live around Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where a local son from a legendary family of purveyors operates A.L.C. Alimentari, bringing a unique Italy-centric experience to the old-school environs of this outer borough's outer reaches.
Louis Coluccio, Jr. is the son of an Italian immigrant who, with his father and brother, founded D. Coluccio & Sons in Brooklyn in 1962. What began as a deli morphed into an import business, a cash and carry wholesaler specializing in products from Italy desired by the immigrant community in and around Bensonhurst. Louis, Jr. grew up working in the store anytime he was not in school, and he returned as a full-time employee after graduating from Tufts University in Boston in 2004.
A.L.C. Alimentari in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
While working for the family business, the double major in Marketing and International Business also worked as a liaison for the Italian Trade Commission, providing services including event planning, catering, and writing, that brought the Italian-American kid from Brooklyn to the Italian peninsula as part of his work. And it was in Italy, on tours of distinct regions, that Coluccio discovered the alimentari, an amalgam of his favorite things about specialty stores in America.
“I loved the concept of the alimentari, and the way they treated what we might call a deli or a grocery,” Coluccio says. “I loved the idea of people sitting in there eating while other people were buying their produce and groceries. I think that’s so cool. ”
A seed was planted in the mind of an adventurous, ambitious spirit. Back home in Brooklyn, Coluccio began peeking through the windows of an abandoned storefront on 3rd Avenue between 86th and 87th streets. In 2012, he opened the doors to A.L.C. Alimentari and introduced the neighborhood to a mostly unheard-of concept in a unique space.
The 1,200-square-foot storefront is full of light, minimal in design, and carefully arranged, minus the familiar Italian-American grocery motif of hanging meats and cheeses and framed photos of Italian-American icons on the wall. There’s exposed brick and polished wood, an open, airy floor plan with tables for eating in, and carefully arranged displays featuring fresh produce, meats from gourmet purveyors, organic dairy products, fresh cheeses from local producers, and aged cheeses from Italy. Also imported from Italy is guanciale, which you still won’t find in most Brooklyn butcher shops, along with many jarred items, like Calabrian peppers, tuna from Sicily, colatura (anchovy oil), and tomato sauces shelved along a wall near the artisanal pastas and sprigs of dried oregano.
The prepared food menu has quinoa and roasted vegetables, salads of white beans and artichokes, couscous, and mushrooms. There’s lasagna and eggplant parmesan dishes that lean towards the Italian interpretation, chicken cutlets but no chicken parm, and a pasta of the day. No meatballs. The rice balls are made in the Venetian style, smaller, more delicate than the softballs served up at NYC pizzerias and delis. A signature dish is the Roman-inspired porchetta, a stuffed, rolled, and roasted pork belly that’s available every Saturday and typically unavailable — as in sold out — by noon.
The sandwiches are served panini-style with an array of unique condiments (pesto, olive paste, balsamic mayo, quince jam) with vegetables, meats, and cheeses in combinations marked mostly by authentic Italian first names (Valentina, Stefania, Lucia). One standout, the Carmine Calabrese, a fried cutlet topped with spicy Calabrian peppers, garlic aioli, and provolone, attracts sandwich aficionados from around New York City.
But it’s the locals who validate the vision of a native son who brought a little bit of Italy to Brooklyn.
“The neighborhood has been great since the minute we opened. In the beginning, everyone expected a much more traditional kind of shop. They would see things and say this is a little different, but that is what kept us going,” Coluccio says. “Those things are what piqued everyone’s interest, and a lot of those who asked the questions at the beginning are the same ones who still come to us today.”