Chelsea Market

We have just come back from the Fancy Food Show in New York looking for exciting new products for the Gourmet Fusion store, but we did manage to take a side trip to the Chelsea Market which is an amazing wholesale and retail fine food market right in the City.

Originally this building was the Nabisco factory where they made the famous Oreo cookie. It stretches one block at 75 Ninth Avenue, and houses some of the most wonderful specialty food stores, not to mention some great architecture. The pipe pouring water into a well shown in this picture is in the center of the building, and was a refreshing sound after the 95 degrees heat on the street outside.

There are some wonderful places to eat, but as we were looking for something light we stopped for a cup of lobster bisque and a lobster wrap at The Lobster Place. This is a gourmet seafood store with take out menu and seating outside. It sells over 1,000,000 pounds of lobster to the city’s finest hotels and restaurants each year, so even if you're not hungry it's worth going to browse at the wonderful collection of shellfish and shrimp lined up on the counters.

Of course, who couldn't resist dessert at Ruthy's Baked Goods? Here you can find luscious cheesecakes and rugalach, as well as melt-in-your-mouth brownies, cakes, breads and croissants that taste like they've been baked at home. Then there's these fun little cakes shown in our picture with every animal and cartoon character you can think of, all piped with luscious cream icing.

If you are going to New York, Chelsea Market is definitely a must see, not only for the wonderful food, but the building itself where architect Jeff Vandeberg and developer Irwin Cohen have created a fun atmosphere using features from the original factory, such as gears, pipes and machines as architectural details.