Exclusive | NJ deli crafts fried ravioli Christmas trees that are fry-ing off the shelf

They’re having themselves a cheesy little Christmas.A New Jersey deli is crafting 2-foot-tall ravioli Christmas trees — and they’re fry-ing off the shelf.Taliercio’s in Middletown, NJ, shared their festive Italian creation, trimmed with kale, cherry tomatoes and around 50 fried ravioli, two weeks ago on TikTok and Instagram.They were soon inundated with over 100 orders — and people coming into the shop just to take selfies with the savory sapling.

“I didn’t expect it to take off the way it did,” Eric Taliercio, whose dad Stephen owns the deli, told The Post.“People sent us direct messages overnight, asking when it would be available.

I make one fresh every day and just put it out there for display and people come in and just take pictures with it.They love it.”The idea came about after the chef at Taliercio’s, Onofrio Moscato, saw an antipasto tree on TikTok.

The trees cost $99.95 and customers can choose from two different styles — saucy or sugary.“You can get it two ways, sauce on the side or zeppole style, with confectioners’ sugar on top of the rav, because it looks like powdered snow,” said Taliercio, 36, a Staten Island native.

Taliercio said the idea for the centerpiece, which customers are buying to put in the middle of their holiday tables, was a no-brainer since fried ravioli are their biggest sellers at Christmastime.“We do anywhere between 35 to 45,000 fried ravioli platters on Christmas Eve,” he said. “Christmas is our Super Bowl.”Besides savory flavors like garlic parmesan, pizza and hot honey, they also serve sweet ravioli such as hot cocoa, cinnamon toast church, limoncello and strawberry milkshake.Taliercio is already planning his New Year’s Eve fried-ravioli creation.“I can get a faux empty Dom Perignon bottle and garnish it with hot honey ravioli and edible gold to toast the new year,” he said.

“And go from a Rav Tree to Dom P.”...