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Categories: Desserts, Coffee & Tea, Bakeries [Edit]
Neighborhood: Williamsburg - South SideGraham Ave (L)
Metropolitan Ave-Lorimer St (G, L)
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Desserts=Awesome
Service=mediocre
I agree with the other reviewers that the cannoli are the best. Gelato is also great, the best I've had outside of Europe. I also really like that they have a cat. Not only is it cute but I feel confident knowing there is and extra layer of rodent control.
My boyfriend's birthday was today so after reading the reviews here on yelp i snuck over early in the morning to pick up a birthday cake. It being the day-of, i was relieved to see some cakes in the window frosted in the way that would suggest their sole purpose of being is birthdays.
The woman at the counter who helped me was not particularly friendly, but neither was she mean, she just did not smile, was not excited to see me, seemed verymuch bored while helping me, and was a little brusque. However, i paid it no mind. She wrote "Happy Birthday ALec" on the cake (yes, a capital "L", i don't know why and i don't give a damn but i did find it curious) and i also picked up a giant palmier ("elephant ear") and five pignola cookies.
The pignolas were for me. They were heavenly soft and chewy and made me wish i had bought more samples of the cookies- they all looked so good! My boyfriend liked his palmier, i didn't try it but it looked (and sounded) airy and crisp as it should be.
We both enjoyed the cake. I was a little apprehensive because i've never bought a birthday cake for anyone before (i've always made them myself) and my boyfriend can be super picky. But it was a win! The one i picked out was layers of yellow sponge cake soaked in sugar syrup with one layer of vanilla pastry cream and one layer of chocolate cream (?) with a whipped cream frosting. The syrup kept it nice and moist, although i think it should be noted that the syrup soaked down through the layers so that while the top layers were perfect the bottom layer of cake was utterly saturated with the syrup. Utterly. Drenched. We didn't mind, but it might bug you.
I look forward to coming back and sampling more cookies! I also think i saw lobster tails in the case too, YUMMY....
* WARNING* Review base ONLY on their cannoli.
My friend and I were walking through the street fair today on the UES when I we came across Fortunato Brothers. They were strictly selling cannolis and I LOVE cannolis! I've tried many so called Italian pastry shops around the city and a few in Brooklyn, but this is one of the few places that make a mean cannoli with real ricotta filled filling! If you've never eaten a cannoli before, DO NOT eat the chocolate/vanilla pudding cannoli filling! It does not taste the same as the ricotta filled cannoli.
I only just went here for the first time this weekend, despite having been meaning to go for months and months now.
A couple of months ago I was visiting a friend in Boston, and we decided to stage a cannoli competition to decide which cannoli was better; Mike's Pastry or Modern Pastry. We bought two cannolis from each shop, divided them amongst 4 people and put it to a vote; Mike's Pastry won for Mascarpone filling, while Modern Pastry won for Ricotta.
This fueled in me an enthusiasm for cannoli not previously developed; so I foraged Yelp in search of the best New York cannoli and came across the conveniently (to me) located Fortunato Brothers.
I have to say, now that I've tried their cannoli, I think they beat Boston. I won't pretend to be a true cannoli connoisseur, but these are the best I've ever had. They're fab. And at $3 for a large, they're a pretty reasonable dessert stop. I can't wait to try all their other tasty looking pastries, as well as the gelato and coffee.
Also, they have a big cute resident cat. :)
I want to live in Fortunato's. They have really great cream puffs and their canolli has the best cream I've ever had so far. It's worth the trip, for you non-Brooklynites and I'm so happy to have this within walking distance! (Though my gut is probably not thanking me that much).
I love it. They love me. And they have lobster tails? Word. End of story.
I stumbled upon this place while showing apartments nearby. I had arrived innthe area early and had some time to kill, plus my phone battery was running low.
I got an espresso and cheesecake which were both outstanding. Plus they charged my phone.
The biggest thrill of all was the old men reading italian newspapers and gently ribbing each other. I felt like I had just pulled up on my Vespa to a small cafe somewhere on the outskirts of Rome. You know the feeling you get when traveling and you're not really looking for anything but you stumble upon one of the most memorable food experiences of your trip? The place that isn't in the guidebook where Boone speaks English and you are happy for it? Noone is writing postcards and there is not a guidebook in sight?
Where the food is special and you can feel the love that went into preparing it?
This is that place.
Shhhh. Only tell enough people to keep it alive.
And bring your very special friends who have earned the right to experience the real deal.
I can't stop thinking about this place and it's dreamy little cheesecake served in the top of a takeout cup lid. Perfect.
Best canollis I've ever had. I take trips out here from Harlem just for the cannolis. The mini cheesecakes are the shit. They have so much stuff, and it's all good. Yes, the service is a bit slow and not always the friendliest but really it doesn't matter! This place is so wonderful, it's worth every minute and every dollar spent there. I always bring out of town guests there. I've had many of my friends and family beg me to send cannolis to California!
A coworker bought a birthday cake for another coworker from this place. The cake was huge, and as a staff of all women, we kept saying, "Yeah, I just want a small piece," or "We'll never be able to finish this whole cake!"
It was devoured in approximately fifteen seconds. We were like vultures circling in on our static prey. I think there was some elbowing, and there were some passive aggressive claims on slices, too ("Well, I DID only have a small slice, so I guess I should take another..."). I could have sworn I saw someone licking the circular cake tray. It was moist and had banana and strawberry filling (it was the exact cake in one of the pictures uploaded on yelp-- white icing with strawberries).
I'm not really a cake person-- they are usually too dry for me. Normally, cookies do it for me. But I could eat this cake every day of the week. Thank goodness I work around the corner from this place. I will be waddling there every day for the rest of the year.
damn this place makes some beautifully crafted canollis.
for the price, the portions are huge, and everything is WELL made and fresh. the cheesecakes here are oh so fluffy and freshly whipped. ohh... me oh my................................................ .
Tried many Italian pastries and would have to say that this is my favorite. Don't even bother with the bakeries on Little Italy, they don't even compare.
WOW fab cannolis and gelatos. We had both the pistachio and the hazelnut, you can tell the nuts are both salted and roasted, both of which I am a big fan. The ice cappuccino also delicious. I do with the whip cream was a bit sweeter though, I think they are just whipping some heavy cream and calling it a day.
I wish I could give this place 10 stars. This is my absolute favourite Italian bakery - and I grew up in an Italian-American town. My Italian grandma ADORES this place! The pastries are phenomenal. I highly recommend the cannolis (best cannolis I've ever had, and I've spent quite some time in Italy) and the "lobster tail." The pastries are SO delicious - I am currently at work and fantasizing about their pastries.
All the Italian pastries I grew up on I can get here. I am a runner, and actually have a run I call "Fortunato Brothers Run" where I run past the bakery in the early mornings and just inhale - it smells SO good!
Yuck. I don't get the raves about this place. It's seriously gross. I don't care if it's been in the neighborhood for a gazillion years. The people are mean who work there and it's disgusting (the sweets and the dirty store). Always been that way.
Go to Settapani. Much better pastry, cookies and breads.
Dear Justine,
Whenever you give us the smallest morsel of anything from Fortunato Bros. we just go wild. Our Jewish make-up makes us partial to apricot or poppy seed fillings, so we should be slightly secretive in our love...but we just had to scream out loud. Whether it's crumbs from fresh baked cookies, cream from a cannoli or the most amazing gelato we've ever had. Anything will make us cheat. We had some last night, but when do we get more?
Sincerely,
Your Taste Buds.
What to say. I'm kind of biased because as far back as I could remember my Dad has been taking me there either when we lived in Brooklyn or were just visiting my Grandma. I had the opportunity to go back there again last week and grab a delicious box of canoli's :) Talk about memories!
The service is friendly and prices are reasonable. Definitely stop in here to grab treats if you're headed someplace for dinner or a potluck, everyone there will appreciate it.
Out toward eastern Williamsburg, well removed from Bedford Avenue and its stylish tributaries the grainy brick facades of urban renaissance give way and become neighborhoods homes sheathed in curious and unknown building materials whose popular use has disappeared like recipes for your grandmothers favorite jam or your neighbor's barbecue short ribs. Life is slightly different in this clime; perhaps it is the whistle of tinny air against aluminum siding; better yet, the stench of a men and women one generation closer to labor.
Out by the Lorimer stop, the sunlight there radiates in traditional rays rather than the gingham, checked and plaid aurae just west. But it is just as hot, and on a summer day nothing with allay our special humidity better than a couple scoops of gelato. Fortunato Brothers' ineluctable version of this Italian treat comes in myriad flavors that would have an entire volume of light, summer poetry. But there is little else hear that does not suffer the wildly bearable lightness of being.
At first glance the black, polished table and thin veneer of marble conjures up conversations of painting fences and wet work. However, the staff, between chewing and snapping their gum, is friendly and helpful and their knowledge of flavors, cookies and biscuits is encyclopedic if not maniacal. The patrons are benevolent paisonos and, chums, pals, gals and kiddies that will invariably being doing the same things in heaven well before me.
Without expiring the fungibility of a $5 note, my sister (who is quickly becoming indispensable for she doubles the amount of dishes I can taste--and lets me live in her apartment as the familial version of a squatter) and I tried three gelatos that represented a greatest hits. It should be noted there is some debate about whether or not the Fortunato clan is still making their own gelatos, but I was too shy and too pleased in any event, to enquire.)
First, a scoop of Spagnolia was creamy and speckled with deep, crimson cherries. Their fruit was preserved but their texture was not frozen. On its own merits, Fortunato Brothers is a nice, Sunday treat. Just ordering Spagnolia, which I presume means "Spanish" made me feel like Will Ferrel in Old School: "hey, Spanish!" and that is good too.
Mango was a tangy treat whose color could be found on any episode of Saved By The Bell. Sometimes fruity gelato can go awry. It is easily awash in dull sweetness or a crush of tart that summons the worst Jim Carey impersonations. Matched with the creamy, delectable pistachio, whose description concludes this piece, this fruity desert followed a simple plan for transmutation of the fruit.
The pistachio gelato was heavenly. Each mouthful tasted as though I had run my tongue across the top of all appropriate baklava between Constantinople and Yerevan. The intensity of pistachio flavor was matched by its deep olive hue. Dressed in this gelato, John Rambo could never have found me in any unfinished war.
And that is all I have to say about that.
Ok. I went again and had the pinole cookies... wow. And someone cleaned up in there. I like a place that gets with it and steps it up a notch. Still having some trouble with the "table service". Do they work behind the counter or are they going to come help you out? Up, down, up, down... "be right there" only lasts for 10 minutes max ladies.
The only thing that this place has that I like is the gelato but even that is just "on par" with… Read more »
3.5 stars
Horrible setup and service (2 stars), awesome desserts (4 stars).
Here's how it should work here at Fortunato: Go to the counter and look at all your choices and pick one that you want, pay and have the cashier ask you if you want to stay or go and if you want anything else. If you want to eat there they can put your dessert on a plate on a tray and you can go find a seat.
Here's how it actually works here at Fortunato: You peer at all your choices and they ask you're staying or going. If you're going they tell you to grab a seat and someone will come by to help you. If you don't like the set up its too bad because they wont let you order and get something up front and then grab a seat. They only have one (possibly 2) servers for about 10 tables (which are all full during busy times) after a while someone comes by and takes your order and if you don't know what the dessert was called that you saw in the display you have to try to describe it to the waitress and then when you both give up you have to get out of your seat, walk with her to the display and point it out (I saw two people have to do this while I was there).
We were finished with our dessert and waiting for a waitress and trying to grab even a glimpse of her to flag her down for almost 20minutes before we had to give up and go to the front counter and ask to get our bill so we could pay. The front counter took another 3 minutes or so to flag down our waitress to get the bill.
In terms of the food everything is absolutely perfect and you'll be hard pressed to find a better cannoli, neapolitan, or most likely all their other Italian pastries. Expect to pay $3-5 for most of their items making it a bit expensive but normal for New York. They also have gelato and spumoni but I can't vouch for how good they are.
I got some nasty cream puff-like pastries here yesterday. The cake was dry and stale. The shell frosting (mimicking chocolate) tasted of pure cloying corn syrup and clogging hydrogenated fat. The mousse filling was okay but not good and certainly not good enough to make up for the other insults.
Also tried a pistachio cookie, which was tasty but kind of lame - if you know what I mean.
Coffee was very hot but watery.
No thank you.
If only if,,,
you like very good pastries its a place you got to try ...
from Marzipan to the best dripping orange flavor sticky sweet covered croissant (only in the morning ) to the coffee .. sweet and a great place to spend morning (not to early not before 9 ) or afternoons.
you got invited to dinner or a party and u want everyone to remember YOU bring one of there whipped creamy cakes ,,, ;)) its a blast ..
Possibly the best gelato I've had outside of Italy. Amazing cannoli and cheesecake (or my favorite: marzipan!) A cute date spot for coffee and a sweet.
Cookies A+
Cheese cake A++++
Cannolis A++++++++++
Being my local bakery, I often find myself walking past to sneak a whiff or a glimpse of all the goodies. My folks back home start reminding me weeks in advanced of holidays to remind me to stop in and get the desserts. Occasionally, I'll surprise them in between holidays with a cheesecake or a box of cookies. My mother knows to expect cannolis by now, though. That is, if I don't get stuck in traffic heading back home and end up polishing off the box. No, I wouldn't do that.
Juniors, step aside. Fortunato Brothers know how to do it better!
Manhattan Avenue it still an enclave of Italian Americana. The encroachment of hipster goofballs has not completely saturated this neighborhood. Fortunato Brothers is a homage to a different time when Brooklyn was like its own country.
I only wish that Fortunato Brothers lived up to my romanticization of it.
I want to walk in and be greeted by Italians. Instead I'm barely greeted by hood rat girl from the nearby projects who works behind the counter.
I want to eat delicious Italian pastries. Instead I eat soggy Sfogiatella that has been in the refrigerator too long.
I want to have smooth delicious gelato. Instead I'm fed some farce that their distributor has perpetrated on the public.
I want the guy at the table next to me to get whacked by a big guy in a wool suit and felt fedora for skimming from his bosses take.
Okay, I could live without the mob hit if the pastries were good.
______
This is where you come for the real deal. It's the best of old ethnic Brooklyn in a neighborhood that was predominantly Italian for years. The desserts get a 10 if that was possible. The service is very hit and miss. Some of the girls that work behind the counter shouldn't even be allowed to work at the NYC car impound yard. It's not all of them by any means. Other than that, you have the perfect Italian American bakery and cafe.
OK, I have never been to the actual bakery. I have had their cannoli at street fairs, and have received boxes of their assorted cookies from clients at work...and they are orgasmic. I have never been to Sicily or Rome, so I don't have the authentic versions to compare them to, but of all the places I have tried, this is by far the best. If I see you on the street with a Fortunato Cannoli, just hand it over and no one gets hurt!!!
Sit with your back against the wall, facing the door at this place - there may be hit anytime! That's the feeling you get anyway - heavy duty marble of all shapes and styles ("I know a guy"), faux tin ceilings, chintz galore - this place is right out of every lousy mob movie you've seen on tv. And that is part of the charm. What makes it is a pro behind the coffee bar, who reminds us all why Starbucks is closer to McDonald's than an espresso spot in Florence. The gelato (gelati?) is really good, not an overwhelming choice of flavors, but plenty to choose from - coconut, straciatella and caramel are three I've loved. Canoli's are also really good. But the best part is the way everybody trusts you - walk in, they don't ever ask for money, you have to track them down to pay for what you ordered. Great spot from another era.
I like the pinoli cookies, I like the gelato...I like the set up. But, I will say there are alot of nasty young girls who work there...They act as if you are bothering them, when you are buying pastries....I Am going to guess, that the couple of girls that, are nice that work here, are related to the owners... I gotta say that the cappuccino barista is a very sweet, he must have been working there at least 4 years.... I recommend you try the pistachio gelato...It is the best, I've ever had...But it sells out quickly. Banana is also a good one...
It's pretty hard to believe that 2 of the 3 reviews of this place deal with milkshakes. I didn't even know they served milkshakes. Nothing would possess me to walk through the door at Fortunato's (which aptly has an erratically roaming black cat) and order a milkshake, from this, the last bastion of a dying Brooklyn and Italian-American institution: the pastry-shop cafe.
Too often people move into this neighborhood and head west to Bedford or south to Grand, only to dump a ton of money into something they fully expect to be better simply because it's new. Fortunato's has been around Williamsburg a long time, and it still does things the old-fashioned way, such as filling cannoli fresh as you order them, and serving a caffe coretto if you ask politely and with a nod to tradition.
Even in Bensonhurst, the last remaining "Little Italy" of the five boroughs, you'd be hard pressed to find a pasticceria where you can sit and enjoy your treats long enough to watch the old paesani walk by and grumble to each other in dialect. This place is a winner.
The cookies and other treats are great, and the coffee is good, even if it always arrives on the table at about 400 degrees. My wife and I take our daughter here very often and we're always treated like regulars-- in the way that neighborhood places should treat neighborhood folk.
We're lucky to still have places like Fortunato Brothers around!
Just got back from Brooklyn, and this was the only destination that I absolutely had to hit during my visit. They make the best cannoli (singular is "cannolo," you rubes) in the known universe, owing to a combination of creamy, non-grainy filling and sturdy but still flaky and light pastry tubes. Unless we make contact with the Ricotta aliens from planet Beta Cannoli of the Flaky Crust Galaxy, it is unlikely that you will ever eat a better one, so give them a shot. Also, the cappuccino was delicious.
I can't tell you how many times I have had to trek over here and buy my wife rainbow cookies. No really. It's ridiculous.
I'd tell you what I like but I've never been privy to the naming conventions. I just say "I'd like one of those thingies. Give me two of those doo dads, etc."
I'm not too keen on their birthday cakes.
I've never smelled anything as delicious as the 2 block radius surrounding Fortunato Brothers. I'm waiting for a friend to devour these pastries with me, and I'm eyeing that box like an animal.
Next time I'ma violate the hell out of some granitas and honey glazed croissants.
The best coffee in all 5 boroughs. I moved away, but all I ever talk about is Fortunato Bros. I miss them. I miss the frozen granitas I would buy tons of, and they would look at me like I was nuts (that shit is strong, yo) and put in my freezer and eat like ice cream. Yummmm...
Honey glazed croissants and hazelnut gelato. I visited all the damn time. And if you have a party to go to, get the cake or pastries here, the guests will thank you.
Gota get the right stuff at the right store right? If you like cheese cakes, cannolis, eclairs, home made ice cream, you MUST stop here for them. Chocolate swirl cheese cake, yum. Its thick rich creamy taste is absolute! (however if you like light cheesecakes, might consider stay away from these) Cannolis and eclairs are perfect with an afternoon coffee. They are fresh and not heavy. (dont eat too many at once!) Home made ice cream is great during summer time, i would just walk there for there ice cream time to time. They got some funky flavor sometimes. (like mint-something which taste like tooth paste lol)
stop by and get a few cannolis on your way home, you will come back for sure.
Disgusting. If you don't want food poisoning from their rotting pastries, don't go.
Eek. This place gives me major major willies. Weird teenage nasty girls behind the counter looking… Read more »
I had the good fortune of trying one of the Fortunato Bros cannolis during the July 4th Water Street Festival and although it was very tasty, I really didn't have anything to compare it to at the moment. The last time I had a true cannoli was a very long time ago, so I give it 4 stars for what I thought at the moment. Probably the fact that they cannolis had been sitting out affected the freshness, but I'm sure they're usually amazing!
Oh, a little pricey for 1, I think it was $3?
I never thought I'd miss a cannoli of all things but damn they make some fine pastries at Fortunato's.
I used to love running in there for some cookies or pastires and either take them into work or try to resist and take them home - either way it was a yummy experience.
Channel your inner-Mickey-Blue-Eyes over a cappuccino and croissant (available in the late mornings only).
The mother of all cannolis... that's all I have to say. Great pastries, Italian cookies, cappuccino, espresso, gelato- served up by pretty young women in a setting that screams old school Brooklyn. I think you get the picture.
Was in there a couple of weeks ago on a visit back east and had a ten minute conversation with a neighborhood guy with a rope chain around his neck and a beautiful, exotic, white mc caw on his arm.
great cakes and pastries!!!!!! miss you biagiooo!!! very good people who own this bakery .....
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