Mattarello Bakery & Café — Restaurant in Montclair

I hate to sound like that person, but if I could leave 0 stars, I would. I was so excited to order from this bakery because the pastries looked so great online. The pastries were supposed to be a gift for my parents. I ordered through Postmates and unfortunately by the time the pastries arrived and by the time I got to them, I found them sitting outside of my front door with the box halfway open. When I opened it fully, I discovered a box full of roach-looking little insects crawling all over my pastries. I’m not sure if they got in because my food was left open on the floor, as if it were for a dog, or whether they came from inside the bakery. While I admit that Postmates is at fault for not bringing the box in, nor giving me any heads up as to where they left it or the fact that they had left it outside in general, the bakery is also at fault and refusing to take responsibility.

The box was given to the postmate without anything to actually protect it. There was no tape closing the box, no yarn, no plastic bag. Without the box being sealed, anyone could just open it and do whatever they pleased with the pastries inside. When my dad called the bakery to let them know this happened, the person answering the phone was not only very rude and refused to take any responsibility for not sealing the box, but ended up hanging up on my dad after continuously repeating to him that “we do not do deliveries”. My dad was not asking for money back, nor was he asking for any more pastries—he just wanted to let the bakery know of this issue, which they very clearly were not willing to hear.

If you are ordering from the bakery, be aware, especially if you aren’t going there to pick up pastries yourself or are expecting any type of positive customer service experience. Also, to add insult to injury, the pastries looked worse in quality in person than they did online. I’ve included some photos so you can see what I’m talking about. I hope this was helpful to someone.

In response to the owner's message: Again, while it is on Postmates to have done better with alerting me of my delivery's arrival, it is also on you as the owner of the bakery as well as your employees to pack the goods appropriately for travel. Unless the postmate driver purposely took tape off the box and removed it from the bag for a reason unbeknown to me, that is on you and your business. You are correct, my dad was very angry when you called to tell him that you will hand deliver replacement goods in an hour, and rightfully so. The event he needed the pastries for was over so delivering him pastries hours later is not helpful. Sometimes there isn't a way to correct the issue after the fact. You and your employees should have been working on a higher standard from the beginning and should have taken him seriously when he called calmly the first time instead of hanging up on him twice. Please save your kind wishes for me and direct that energy towards training your...

UPDATE 7/6/24:

Over the years this lovely cafe has maintained a level of excellence in the quality of their pastry offerings, added coffee and espresso drinks, gelato, unique canned and dry delicacies to shop from Italy, the wonderful gigantic chocolate eggs wrapped in beautiful paper for Easter just like we remember from living in Italy….all wonderful! Now, in that same thoughtful and understated way Mattarello has added a brunch menu. Today we had the croissant basket : the pistachio and Nutella cream inside these croissants was light and the perfect amount of sweetness..not the usual thick heavy filling you might find elsewhere. Then…the arancini- a delicious snack we loved in Rome filled with rice and cheese, these are absolutely excellent at Mattarello…finally there was a really good variety of items on the brunch menu with some classics and unique items, something for everyone, beautifully prepared and presented. I had the quiche that was light and fluffy and flavorful with a rich, buttery crust, my husband had the classic eggs Benedict, which he said was perfect. We will be back, of course!

This is a wonderful place with genuine Italian offerings, delicious pastries and coffee and friendly people behind the counter who are enthusiastic and helpful. Worth a visit. We’ll be back again!

Having returned many times, just wanted to add that we try something new almost every time but the cannoli, Italian cheesecake (by the slice!) and chocolate chestnut cake (by the slice), as well as the lobster claw and sfogliata have all been excellent, to make a few. We also enjoy stopping by early on a weekend for a macchiato and the mini quiche or, for a Roman style breakfast, they’ll fill a croissant with any filling you like, including nutella, which is...

This cafe is so cute and cozy. The staff member is super friendly. However, everything I bought was very underwhelming. I paid $22 for a large cannoli, an iced matcha, and candy fish. I was craving a cannoli and decided to try this place and I did not like it at all. The cannoli shell had a weird aftertaste and tasted like an unsweetened crispy funnel cake/fried dough of some sort. The filling for the cannoli didn’t taste like other cannolis I have tried from other places and was a little too lemony and fell flat. The chocolate pieces I could barely taste as they seemed to have been chopped up mini pieces of chocolate that melted into the cannoli cream with no chocolate taste at all. Best I can compare the taste is to a store brand vanilla cookie with crème.

The iced matcha with oat milk I got tasted like straight oat milk and was very pale in color. I kindly asked the staff member if he can add more matcha because it tasted like a cup of oat milk and he happily added more, but it still tasted like oat milk and since the matcha was hot and melted the ice I drank warm oat milk basically.

The candy fish was good and I think it’s supposed to be a better take on Swedish fish using more natural ingredients.

Overall, what I bought was disappointing but if you are in the area maybe you will like the desserts. I will say a lot of the desserts I saw looked good so maybe I just chose one that isn’t their star dessert. I would definitely be willing to try a different dessert and skip the matcha if I ever go again because the atmosphere of the cafe is nice and the...