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Main Street Bakery, Port Washington

BY ERICA MARCUS | erica.marcus@newsday.com

June 26, 2008

Main Street Bakery
170 Main St.
Port Washington
516-304-5214

THE BAKER
Michael Mignano opened this charming bakery April 20. The Bayport resident (and Astoria native) spent the past nine years as executive pastry chef at the Four Seasons hotel in Manhattan before setting out on his own.

THE HERITAGE
"I always knew pastry," said Mignano, whose mother and father both emigrated from Sicily, the sweets capital of Italy. "My grandmother made her own cannoli -- and her own fresh ricotta to fill them." In fact, Mignano's original plan was to avoid certain Italian-American confections such as rainbow cookies -- "You never see those colors in nature" -- and cannoli, but after fielding dozens of requests from customers, they both are now on the menu.

THE GOODS
Mignano can hardly keep up with the demand for the "morning pastries," such as croissant, pains au chocolat and muffins. Other top sellers include Key lime pies, fruit tarts, apple galettes, mango charlottes, strawberry shortcakes and tiramisu. Mignano makes almost all of his confections in both standard and single-serving portions -- think of the latter as trial sizes.

Right now he's also serving delectable little chocolate-dipped cheesecake bites, sprinkled with bits of Valrhona chocolate crunch.