Hoboken's Tastebud Tour

The Hoboken Food Tour offers can't-miss culinary delights fit for the most discriminating palates.

Posted October 13, 2009 by Jason Stahl

Carlo’s Bake Shop is among the stops on Hoboken’s three-hour food tour.

Photo by Heather Swanson.

The Hoboken Food Tour, which launched in July, takes you behind the scenes of eight family-owned businesses. For $40, your eyes (and tastebuds) can feast on “mutz”—as they call mozzarella in the ‘Boken—being made by hand at two different delis; a Zagat-rated pizza spot; and Italian bread straight from coal-fired brick ovens at two wholesale bakeries. You’ll also visit a sweet shop that’s home to the Cap’n Crunch Chocolate bar, and a coffee and tea store owned by the same family for more than 100 years.

The final stop on the tour is the century-old Carlo’s Bake Shop. There you’ll bypass the line and head to the back for a view of gorgeous wedding cakes and more, and may even meet bakery head Buddy Valastro, seen on the TLC reality show Cake Boss (featured in the July issue of New Jersey Monthly). The one non-food-related stop is the childhood home of Frank Sinatra.

Avi Ohring, a 23-year Hoboken resident, saw how successful Hoboken’s other tours were (like the annual House and Secret Garden tours), and felt the time was ripe for a food tour. In addition to being inexpensive and intimate (limited to fourteen people), Ohring says visitors “will find this tour to be a more authentic experience.”

The most popular stop so far has been Lisa’s Italian Deli. Its owner, Anthony Lisa, a Hobokenite since 1971, “puts on the whole show, making the mutz right in front of you,” Ohring says.

The three-hour tour departs every Saturday at 2 pm outside the PATH station. For tickets, visit hobokenfoodtour.com.

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