Think Local: Di Camillo Bakery
Friday, March 9, 2012 at 11:07AM 
Back in 1920 one married couple, Tomaso and Addolorata Di Camillo, took the warmth and love from their Italian kitchen and generously offered it to the residents of the Niagara Falls and Buffalo regions. They opened their first bakery on 14th street in Niagara Falls with their 11 children, who were all willing to lend helping hands. While some families bond over music or sports—this family bonded over food.
“It started in a three story commercial building,” said Michael Di Camillo, grandson of Tomas and Addolorata. “The store was on the first floor, the bakery was in the cellar and they lived on the third floor. The building is still standing.”
Michael, who currently works in the bakery, continues the tradition of making their famous Italian bread and cookies, along with a wide variety of other savory treats that were once delivered to neighbors by horse-drawn wagons and are now sent to customers all over the world.
“I think there’s like four leading items, but the main one is the Italian breads that we make, which are the Scaletta breads,” said Michael. “Our Biscotti we ship all over the world. Locally in the retail stores certainly our peanut donuts and Romano pizza are popular too.”
The Scaletta bread is a handmade loaf that is also referred to as Italian “curly bread.” This hearty bread is crusty on the outside and soft on the inside. It can only be shipped out on Mondays and Tuesdays to ensure freshness, which is one aspect they go to great lengths to guarantee. Their Scaletta breads range from $2.65 for a small loaf to $4.65 for a large loaf.
JoAnn “Distefano” Blatner has been an employee at Di Camillo Bakery at the Williamsville location for two years.
“I love working here,” said Blatner. “The customers are great and a lot of fun.”
Blatner says not only does the bakery carry traditional Italian bread, but they also pay homage to other heritages, as they are stocked with a wide variety of unique breads, such as the Placek, which is a Polish type of bread, Irish Sweet bread and Armenian bread. In addition they also sell cracked wheat bread, whole bread, rye bread, home-style bread and round bread.
At Christmas time the bakery also sells their seasonal Panettone bread, which they wrap in festive shiny red paper topped with a bow to celebrate the holiday season.
“Panettone is an Italian type of sweet bread and ours are brought right in from Italy,” said Blatner. “They tend to sell out very quickly. It has a baked almond crust on top. It’s delicious just on its own, toasted and some people buy it to make French toast. There are fruits in it and again it’s very traditional Italian.”
The specialty desserts at Di Camillo look just as delicious as they taste and are made to perfection, while remaining reasonable in price.
“As far as the pastries my favorite would be the Napoleon,” said Blatner. “There are two different types of cream in it, then it’s topped with chocolate, so it’s pretty much perfect.”
Other treats on the menu to satisfy any sweet tooth include the éclair, cannoli, tiramisu, custard puff, Napoleon, ladylock, chocolate fudge tart, walnut butter tart and mini Cassatta cake. These desserts range from $1.10 being the cheapest for the custard puff and $4.99 for the mini-Cassatta cake, being the most expensive.
Along with these desserts they also sell doughnuts, which include the peanut stix, chocolate iced custard, chocolate iced cream, iced jelly, cinnamon glazed, glazed rings, iced lemon, plain stix, glazed stix and maple iced apple. These can be ordered for $1.10 each, $6.30 for half a dozen, or $9.50 for a dozen.
There is also a selection of cookies to choose from as well, such as sugar (or otherwise known as Pizelle), peanut butter, Chinese butter and chocolate chip, which can be ordered for $1.10 each, $5.80 for half a dozen, or $8.50 for a dozen.
“We serve soups, sandwiches and pizza every day,” said Blatner. “Our busiest times are between the hours of 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then it picks up again when people are coming home from work.”
At the Williamsville location there is a comfortable seating area for those who stop by for lunch. Like all the other traditional Italian food they make, their Sicilian pizza is prepared the old-fashioned way, sprinkled with Romano cheese. They also have other pizza options like the broccoli and cheese pizza. The pizza ranges from $1.90 to $2.50 a slice. Their enticing sandwich options include the turkey club, turkey and cheddar with roasted red peppers, pepper salami with turkey and provolone and capicola with provolone and pesto, which range in price from $5.50 to $6.50.
“They’ve remained true to a very Italian product line and I think their strength is in that,” said Blatner. “People know this is a place to come for Italian bread and Italian pizzelles. The traditional Italian, the memories people have of the past. I mean not a day goes by where I don’t hear, ‘My grandmother used to make that,’ or ‘We drove from Washington to get this pizza.’”
Di Camillo provides our community with a place for families to come from near and from far and wide to enjoy their substantial selection and traditional Italian food that brings back the memories people have of their own grandmother’s kitchen!
