The Feast of the Assumption Festival - Mayfield Road and Murray Hill Road in Little Italy

In keeping with our newly formed blog’s aim to cover all things in Cleveland food, or at least the highlights, I had no choice but to make my annual trek to one of my favorite Cleveland foodie spots for the Feast of the Assumption in Little Italy.  This event is easily the pinnacle of the Cleveland summer food fests, often rounding out the summer in the tastiest way.  I have been going to “the Feast” every year since I was a little girl, and I have never lost my sense of excitement when it rolls around each year. 

While I know if you are from the Cleveland area, you are most certainly familiar with the Feast, considering this was its 116^th year, so I will keep my background brief.  While the gluttony, debauchery, and carnival may indicate otherwise, the Feast is a 4 day religious festival in observance of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, and includes nightly masses and a parade where a statue of Mary is carried through the streets.  And now, for the aforementioned gluttony and debauchery: many Little Italy restaurants, as well as outside vendors, set up stands on the shut-down streets of Little Italy and offer the best in Italian food to be found on this side of the Atlantic; bars are set up outside and in many of the restaurants to libatiously celebrate late into the night. 

A little caveat about the Feast: it is popular, verryyyy popular.  If you choose to attend the Feast Friday or Saturday evening, it will be absolutely packed; I mean across the street, shoulder to shoulder packed.  So maybe think carefully before packing the kids up in a stroller, as it will be very difficult to maneuver.  In fact, since my “old-soul” significant other is not much for crowds, I employed my fellow Feast-loving best friend Sarah to accompany me.  We chose to go for lunch around noon on Saturday afternoon to avoid the crowds, and as you can see it was still very busy, even at that time. 

Now for my personal highlights and favorites:

Immediately walking up into Little Italy from the University Circle area you first come upon the Holy Rosary Church on Mayfield Road.  If cavatelli with meatballs is your personal Feast favorite, then none is better than that made by the real professionals: that’s right, the old church ladies.  All you need to consider is that these women have learned their cooking from the generations before them, and nothing beats that traditional taste.

This year, I tried something that is not a Feast regular for me, and I was not disappointed!  While venturing around trying to see which stand had the best looking piece of pizza, Sarah and I stumbled upon a Feast foodie gem: the loaded pizza from Anthony’s Restaurant.  The name is somewhat misleading.  We expected the basic equivalent of a deluxe pizza loaded with sausage, peppers, and onions.  Instead, this gem is essentially an Italian sausage sub sandwich where a slice of pizza serves as the bun – A-MAZ-ING.

I balanced out my something new with a Feast favorite, stromboli.  While the stromboli are not from a Little Italy restaurant, they are a Feast regular, and they are delicious.  The stromboli are similar to a calzone, but much smaller, also served with a side of marinara for dipping.  With several different varieties available, choosing just one can be difficult.  Since I was reaching a level of severe fullness, I opted to take one home for later.  I went with the original with ham, salami and mozzarella, and brought a Roni-boli (pepperoni and cheese) home for the bf.  

No trip to the Feast is complete without something to satisfy your sweet tooth.  The Feast offers all of the best traditional Italian desserts: cassata cake, cannoli, biscotti, tiramisu, sfogliatelle, gelato, and lemon ice.  This is an area where I refuse to venture from my tried and true favorite: the chocolate shelled cannoli.  For those of you not familiar, a cannoli is a traditional Italian pastry with a rolled shell tube filled with a sweetened ricotta cheese mixture.  Cannoli’s are a favorite of mine, because they are not overly sweet, but can be mixed up with the shell dipped in chocolate.  For me, it’s a toss-up between Little Italy legends Corbo’s and Presti’s for the best cannoli.  This year, I went with Presti’s, although I think Corbo’s may win by a hair. 

Well, that about sums up one of Cleveland’s best summer festivals.  I’ll say goodbye with one final caveat: do not attend the Feast hoping to get some of your favorite food from Little Italy’s best gem: Mama Santa’s.  I suppose the restaurant does so well, it chooses not to deal with the mayhem of the Feast, and the whole restaurant takes a vacation and closes up shop during the Feast.  In fact, please make sure that you also make a non-Feast trip to Little Italy, sans commotion, for the best impression.