If they can’t fake it here, they can’t fake it anywhere — and these presidential candidates are fooling no one.

Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz and John Kasich bumbled across the city on Thursday like so many fish-out-of-water sightseers, marveling like rubes at New York staples.

Matzo! Mozzarella! MetroCards!

With New York’s pivotal primaries just 12 days away, on April 19, the candidates indulged in that obligatory rite of campaigning: the New York Cliche Photo Op.

Like fanny-pack-strapped tourists, Clinton got stymied by a subway turnstile, Cruz posed for selfies doing something “local” — hand-rolling matzo dough — and Kasich ate a recklessly massive amount of hometown food in one sitting.

At least Kasich knew enough to take the cannoli.

“We packed the cannolis for him to take because I think he ate too much,” said Irene Dushaj, a concerned worker at Mike’s Italian Deli on Arthur Avenue in The Bronx.

“I can’t believe he ate so much. He ate a lot. It’s good.”

The Ohio governor had started by digging into an antipasto. Then he chowed down on not one, but two bowls of spaghetti Bolognese.

Undaunted by the bounds of decorum or his waistband, he sallied on, ordering a bowl of pasta fagioli, then half-consuming an off-the-menu tribute sandwich, the “J.K.,” consisting of salami, provolone, pepperoni, hot peppers, pickles and oil and vinegar.

This was lunch.

It was as if, after a lifetime of such Ohio delicacies as walleye and pierogi, he had glimpsed the promised land.

“Yeah, a guy’s gotta eat,” the candidate shrugged when asked about his meal.

Deli owner David Greco was impressed, but took points off for one serious faux pas: Kasich repeatedly put his Italian bread back on the table upside down.

“My grandma was very, very old school and superstitious,” Greco explained. “Bread is of God; you never put it upside down. He did that twice. I said, ‘Please, the bread is of God, so please don’t do that.’ But that’s more of a Catholic thing than a New York thing.”

In a swipe at the Brooklyn-born Bernie Sanders — who recently revealed that he thought New Yorkers still used subway tokens — Clinton unsheathed her MetroCard for a photo op at a turnstile outside Yankee Stadium on Thursday morning.

It took her five swipes to get through. The fourth was an especially ineffectual slow-motion maneuver.

Clinton admitted to reporters it had been “a couple years” since her last ride.

Cruz, meanwhile, was in Brooklyn visiting the Chabad Neshama Center day care in Brighton Beach, where he sidled up to rabbis and grade-schoolers and made matzo — all while keeping his suit jacket on.

Outside, about 20 supporters along Ocean Parkway chanted, “Jews for Cruz,” and passed out red kippahs with the Texas senator’s name on them.

Take that, red “Make America Great Again” baseball caps!

“He did great. His matzo came out perfectly,” Rabbi Srolik Winner said. “He said it tasted a lot fresher than the ones in a box.”

Additional reporting by Kirstan Conley, Carl Campanile and Laura Italiano