When it comes to Jersey entrepreneurial muscle, Buddy Valastro is a knockout champion. He’s everywhere at once. He stars in and produces multiple food-centric TV shows, sharing his spotlight with wife Lisa Valastro and their four kids. He’s a best-selling cookbook author and a social media sensation with more than 20 million followers. Dubbed Cake Boss, Buddy is an inspired baker with a genius for intricate custom cakes. He’s also a culinary chef who is at one with Italian American classics.
This local hero has assumed Frank Sinatra’s mantle as the pride of Hoboken, where Valastro grew up in Carlo’s Bakery on Washington Street, which his dad took over in 1964. The United States is now dotted with Carlo’s Bakeries and dozens of Cake Boss vending kiosks turning out cake and pizza. In Las Vegas’s glam casino hotels, Buddy’s Jersey Eats, PizzaCake and Buddy V’s Ristorante draw crowds.
Now this prodigal son of Hoboken is coming home with a something-for-everyone eatery about to unfurl in the original good-time destination: Atlantic City. To enter Buddy’s Boardwalk Empire in Harrah’s Resort is to immerse yourself in Valastro’s world. If you’re a Cake Boss follower, you’ve hit the jackpot.
Buddy’s Boardwalk Empire, open now, beckons with eat-in dining or grab-and-go snacking on “the best of what I love to make, eat and share,” he says. You’ll find his signature focaccia sandwiches, “some with our house-made mozz,” Buddy notes with delight. “Like our roast beef and mozz. It’s still my favorite sandwich. Roast beef and mozz jump-started my relationship with Harrah’s in Vegas. I made one for the big shots deciding whether to bring me in. They flipped.”
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Boardwalk Empire’s pizza comes round or square, by the slice or pie, with distinctive toppings like buffalo chicken and bacon. Buddy calls it “bakery style, like my dad used to make, with dough that really crisps up.” Unique in the Valastro constellation is a custom pasta bar “that you compose,” he says, “with your choice of pasta, sauce and add-ins. It’s gonna be great.”
“But save room for dessert,” he admonishes. One-third of the 4,500-square-foot space is devoted to sweets.
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