A Local's Food Tour of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
Way way back in 2012, I made a short film about Matt & Allison Robicelli, two Bay Ridge, Brooklyn natives with a passion for food and their community who made and sold cupcakes wholesale all around New York City. Now, they run a brick-and-mortar bakery in Brooklyn, called Robicellis, which is responsible for some of the most creative and delicious desserts in the borough. Their most recent claim-to-fame comes in the form of the hotly publicized (in New York City at least) "Nutellasagna," a Frankenstein creation made of lasagna noodles, cannolia custard, nutella, and marshmallows, meant to poke fun at the ever-expanding market for over-the-top, gimmicky desserts, a la the Cronut.
But before there was Nutellasagna, and before Allison was regularly schooling Nick Lachey on television, there were good old-fashioned cupcakes. Except they weren't old-fashioned at all when the Robicellis made them -- they pioneered cupcake combinations like "The Hansel," (white chocolate pudding filled gingerbread cake, cookie butter buttercream, homemade gingerbread cookie) and "Chicken and Waffles," a cupcake crowned with a piece of golden fried chicken and a drizzle of maple syrup.
So you can imagine, I was dying to know what places and neighborhood influences inspired the mad scientist duo to take cupcakes to a level of unprecedented creativity and deliciousness. Check out the video to hear Allison and Matt talk about their upbringing and how it influenced their food, what's so great about salted meat, and where are the best spots in Bay Ridge to get the tastiest ingredients and treats.