Rigoletto Italian Bakery & Cafe

A Naples recipe box behind the case

Cannoli are filled here with sweet ricotta cream and dusted with powdered sugar, and they sit in a case that runs on recipes carried from Naples: eclairs piped with custard and finished with chocolate glaze, biscotti, cookies, cupcakes, macaroons, tiramisu and cake by the slice, with seasonal pieces rotating through. The owner is a Naples native who spent 28 years in the United States working out the recipes now used in the kitchen, and her daughter runs the business with her, which keeps it a family operation.

The shop has traded in Red Mill Commons, on the south side of Virginia Beach, since 2006, and it has never been only a pastry counter. Behind the case is a full Italian kitchen serving through the day, so the same building covers a morning pastry, a lunch panini and a plate of pasta.

Bread, savory plates and the case together

On the bread side the clearest item is the house focaccia, rosemary worked into the pan by hand before baking; it appeared on Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives in the Global Comfort episode. Soups, meatballs, ravioli, lasagna and parmigiana are all made on site from the same recipe box, which is what stops the savory menu reading as an add-on to the bakery.

Paninis, subs, croissants, stuffed meatballs and pasta plates fill in the rest, and custom cakes are a real part of the business rather than a sideline. Some macaroons and some cakes are made gluten free, a small but specific accommodation that runs across both the pastry case and the kitchen.

Order the cannoli, then eat savory

Start with the cannoli. It shows the ricotta work and the Neapolitan pastry training most directly, and it is the item to judge the case by. The eclair is the second read, custard and chocolate against the ricotta, and tiramisu is the classic most Italian bakeries are measured on. Macaroons, cake slices and cupcakes fill out a mixed box when the order is for a table rather than for one person.

Then move to the savory side, because that is where the kitchen separates itself from a pastry shop. The focaccia is the obvious anchor, and the stuffed meatballs, ravioli, lasagna and parmigiana all come from the same source. A panini or a sub makes the same food portable. Biscotti, cookies and cupcakes are what to carry out at the end.