Food Tours · Tour

Five Points to Petrosino Square, Six Dishes

Three hours across Lower Manhattan, meeting on Mulberry Street opposite Tasty Dumpling by the east entrance to Columbus Park, where the guide waits under an orange umbrella. Twelve people at most. The park is where the walk starts and it is not a neutral place to start. It opened in 1897 on the cleared ground of Mulberry Bend, the worst block of the Five Points, the slum that Jacob Riis photographed and that Gangs of New York later dramatised. Today the same ground holds tai chi in the mornings, chess and mahjong most of the day. From there the route works through Chinatown, where sidewalks carry souvenir shops, bubble tea counters and market stalls selling dried fish, herbs and spices, then across Canal Street, which is the seam where Chinatown, Little Italy, SoHo and Tribeca all meet. You eat six things: crispy handmade dumplings, a roast pork bun still warm from the bakery, dan dan noodles, then New York Italian pizza and arancini filled with pesto once you cross into Little Italy, plus one signature dish the company does not name in advance. The last stretch goes through Nolita, north of Little Italy and now the boutique end of the neighbourhood, finishing at Lieutenant Petrosino Square. Joseph Petrosino ran the NYPD's Italian Squad against Black Hand extortion in exactly these streets, and was shot dead in Palermo in 1909 while investigating there, the only New York officer killed on duty abroad. The square is named after him and sits a block from where he worked. Guided in English or Spanish. The menu and the route can change with availability and weather. Tell them about dietary needs before the day. No pets.