ORBISGOURMET & PANTRY IN NEW YORK 21 shops in the atlas.Illustration
Gourmet & Pantry in New York
21 stores · curated ORBIS register
Alice's Tea Cup serves scones and tea sandwiches on West 73rd Street, with an Alice in Wonderland theme throughout its tea-room setting. Dickson's Farmstand Meats operates inside Chelsea Market, buying whole animals from small upstate farms for its butcher counter and charcuterie. Economy Candy has sold sweets on the Lower East Side since 1937, stocking vintage favourites alongside candy sold in bulk.
Sisters Haley and Lauren Fox opened Alice's Tea Cup on West 73rd Street in 2001, building an Alice in Wonderland-themed tea room around a menu of hundreds of tea varieties alongside scones and tea sandwiches.
Best for Alice in Wonderland-themed afternoon tea service with scones and tea
Sisters Haley and Lauren Fox opened Alice's Tea Cup on West 73rd Street in 2001, building an Alice in Wonderland-themed tea room around a menu of hundreds of tea varieties alongside scones and tea sandwiches. The whimsical framing — the shop's own marketing calls it "New York City's most whimsical tea house" — extends down to small touches like fairy dust on the scones, rather than being a costume dropped over a standard tea menu.
The original 73rd Street location, referred to on the site as "Chapter I," still anchors the business, which now also handles private events, catering, and online ordering alongside its dine-in tea service.
A quarter-century in, Alice's Tea Cup remains a sisters-run Upper West Side fixture built on the specific, sustained bit of Wonderland theming that set it apart from New York's more conventional tea rooms when it opened.
Dickson's Farmstand Meats has operated a butcher counter inside Chelsea Market since Jake Dickson opened it in 2009, in the same shed as the High Line's tourist traffic but built on a much older discipline: nose-to-tail use of whole animals bought from small family farms in upstate New York.
Best for Whole-animal cuts and house-made charcuterie from a working nose-to-tail butcher
Dickson's Farmstand Meats has operated a butcher counter inside Chelsea Market since Jake Dickson opened it in 2009, in the same shed as the High Line's tourist traffic but built on a much older discipline: nose-to-tail use of whole animals bought from small family farms in upstate New York. The shop describes its own standard as sourcing beef, pork, lamb, and poultry raised without added hormones, prophylactic antibiotics, or feedlot systems, and states plainly that it strives to "use every part of every animal."
What sets Dickson's apart from a simple meat counter is that its charcuterie is not a side product bought in from elsewhere — the pates, sausages, and cured items sold at the case are made from the same carcasses the shop breaks down for its retail chops and steaks, so the charcuterie case and the meat case are two outputs of one whole-animal operation rather than two separate businesses under one roof. The counter itself is open to walk-in customers daily from 10am to 8:30pm, with a side entrance at 435 West 15th Street that locals use to skip the Chelsea Market crowds.
A restaurant and wine bar operate alongside the retail counter, and the shop runs its own butchery and sausage-making classes, but the core of the business remains a working meat counter selling cuts and house-made charcuterie to take home, not a menu built around a nose-to-tail concept. Best suited to travelers who want to see a genuine big-city whole-animal butcher in action rather than a boutique reproduction of one.
A Curry Hill landmark since 1944, Kalustyan's crams its Lexington Avenue shelves with spices, dried fruits, lentils, teas and hard-to-find ingredients from around the world. Chefs and home cooks shop in person or order the same rice, peppercorns and simmer sauces online.
Jennifer Appel and Allysa Torey opened Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker Street in the West Village in 1996, first baking cupcakes from leftover cake batter. A Sex and the City scene of Carrie and Miranda eating them nearby sparked the cupcake craze that made the shop famous.
Best for The original Bleecker Street cupcakes and banana pudding bar.
Jennifer Appel and Allysa Torey opened Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker Street, at the corner of West 11th, in the West Village in 1996. The shop's cupcakes started almost as a byproduct — baked from leftover cake batter — before becoming the draw in their own right.
The bakery's reputation shifted from neighborhood spot to landmark after an episode of Sex and the City showed Carrie Bradshaw and Miranda Hobbes eating Magnolia cupcakes on a bench outside; the scene is widely credited with helping spark the broader 1990s cupcake craze, and lines have wrapped the block ever since.
The bakery, now marking 30 years in business, has expanded well beyond cupcakes: banana pudding is a signature alongside a dedicated Banana Pudding Bar, and the company has published cookbooks including "The Magnolia Bakery Handbook of Icebox Desserts" by CEO Bobbie Lloyd. It also runs cupcake-decorating workshops teaching its signature swirl and icing techniques.
Mr. and Mrs. Chan, immigrants from Taishan, opened Mei Li Wah on Mott Street in 1968 after Mr. Chan trained at Gum Moon bakery; a 2008 health-code closure was followed by reopening. Its char siu roast pork buns and pineapple bun — a sweet crumb topping, no real pineapple — have drawn Chinatown lines for decades.
Best for Char siu roast pork buns and the pineapple-topped bo lo bao.
Mei Li Wah (also spelled Mei Lai Wah) was opened in 1968 by Mr. and Mrs. Chan, immigrants from Taishan, China. Mr. Chan had arrived in the US in 1943 and struggled to find work as a Chinese immigrant before landing a job at Gum Moon bakery, where he learned the baking trade; once he'd saved enough, he opened the Mott Street shop with a fellow Taishanese friend, using what he'd picked up on the job.
For decades the shop operated as an old-school coffee-shop hangout, where locals gathered over cheap dim sum, fresh buns, and strong coffee to trade gossip and argue politics. It closed briefly in 2008 after a health-department issue — prompting public outcry from a neighborhood that didn't want to lose it — before reopening.
Its char siu roast pork buns, available baked or steamed, remain the signature order, and the roast pork pineapple bun (char siu bo lo bao) — named for its sweet, crumbly topping rather than any actual pineapple — has drawn new lines of customers since the shop went viral on social media in recent years.
A slice of Britain on Hudson Street, Myers of Keswick bakes third-generation pork pies, sausage rolls and Cornish pasties in the West Village. Its shelves and online store carry imported British teas, sweets, jams and household staples.
Best for British grocery, specialty food, pies, imports
Peter Luger has grilled dry-aged USDA Prime steak at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge since 1887, aging its beef on the premises. The cash-only steakhouse also runs a butcher shop selling its cuts and bacon.
Putnam Street, downtown Saratoga Springs, New York, USA
Putnam Market makes its prepared foods, baked goods and charcuterie from scratch at a downtown Saratoga Springs storefront, with a wine shop next door. The counters run to cheese, deli sandwiches and picnic provisions.
Best for Gourmet deli, cheese and wine, picnic supplies
Rokhat Bakery opened in 1994, founded by brothers Roshiel and Rafael Samekhov after they emigrated from Uzbekistan to the United States in 1992, and it now anchors a stretch of Austin Street that sits on the Forest Hills/Rego Park line in Queens — different directories list it under each neighborhood, and both are correct for the same address.
Best for Hand-stamped Uzbek tandoor breads and samsas from a Bukharian Jewish family bakery in Queens.
Rokhat Bakery opened in 1994, founded by brothers Roshiel and Rafael Samekhov after they emigrated from Uzbekistan to the United States in 1992, and it now anchors a stretch of Austin Street that sits on the Forest Hills/Rego Park line in Queens — different directories list it under each neighborhood, and both are correct for the same address. The bakery's own site calls itself a "Traditional Kosher Bukharian Bakery" carrying "four generations of Silk Road tradition," and states its clay tandoor ovens were built by hand, using local clay and straw, to the dimensions of historic Silk Road bakery ovens.
The daily work is built around tandoor bread rather than pastry: Obi Non, a hand-stamped round loaf, Patir (also called lepeshka, a soft flatbread), and whole wheat Kulcha are baked fresh from 4 a.m., alongside crisp, triangular meat- or pumpkin-filled samsas. Culinary Backstreets and Atlas Obscura, in independent coverage of Rego Park's Bukharian Jewish community, describe the walk-in tanoor itself as roughly the size of an industrial refrigerator, and Atlas Obscura calls the shop "a little slice of Central Asia" within Queens.
The bakery carries kosher certification from the Vaad Harabonim of Queens, and current listings (Yelp, updated as of this year) show it operating on regular posted hours, Monday through Sunday with a shortened Friday close. Central Asia's own tandyr-bread tradition proved to have no individually named, verifiably operating bakery with a fetchable web presence inside Uzbekistan or its neighbors on this search pass — Rokhat, run by the same founding family since 1994, is offered as the diaspora bakery genuinely dedicated to that bread.
Four generations of one family slicing smoked salmon on Houston Street since 1914 — the appetizing store that defines the genre. Bagels, belly lox and babka; New York in a pink box.
Best for The appetizing store — smoked fish royalty since 1914
Four generations of one family slicing smoked salmon on Houston Street since 1914 — the appetizing store that defines the genre, and the rare New York institution whose name honors the daughters who ran the counter. Bagels, belly lox, babka: New York in a pink box, cut by hand by the family that's been cutting it for over a century.
Broadway, downtown Saratoga Springs, New York, USA
Saratoga Olive Oil Co. pours dozens of ultra-premium extra-virgin olive oils and barrel-aged balsamic vinegars, sampled on tap before you buy. The family-owned tasting shop sits on downtown Broadway.
Best for Tasting and buying olive oils and balsamics
Broadway, downtown Saratoga Springs, New York, USA
Opened in May 2015 by chef-owner Hayley Stevens at 348 Broadway, Saratoga Tea & Honey Co. runs a working tea bar alongside its shop, pouring loose-leaf teas and raw honey that Stevens sources and tastes herself.
Best for Tea bar on Broadway pouring loose-leaf tea and raw honey personally sourced
Saratoga Tea & Honey Co. opened in May 2015 at 348 Broadway in Saratoga Springs, in the former home of the Symmetry art gallery, founded by chef-owner Hayley Stevens. She has described the venture as an unusual one for the time, a dedicated tea and honey shop was not a common concept locally, and credits guidance from Clint and Barbara Braidwood, founders of nearby Saratoga Olive Oil, for helping get the business off the ground.
The shop functions as a working tea bar, with staff, called Tea Tenders, preparing drinks to order from a stock of loose-leaf and pyramid-bag teas spanning green, black, white, oolong, aged and matcha styles, alongside raw and infused honeys, teaware and gifts. Stevens sources the tea selection herself, a hands-on approach regulars point to when explaining the shop's consistency. Now roughly a decade on Broadway, Saratoga Tea & Honey Co. has built its identity around personal curation and in-person tasting rather than a mass retail tea catalog, treating the tea bar itself, not just the shelf of packaged tea, as the core of the shop.
Shunan Teng grew up in a family of tea drinkers in China, moved to the US at fifteen, and spent years in corporate finance in New York before a trip home convinced her that the city's tea renaissance had nowhere to land in Manhattan.
Best for Rare Chinese teas sourced through the founder's own annual harvest
Shunan Teng grew up in a family of tea drinkers in China, moved to the US at fifteen, and spent years in corporate finance in New York before a trip home convinced her that the city's tea renaissance had nowhere to land in Manhattan. She opened Tea Drunk's East Village flagship in 2013, built around the idea that tea deserved the same connoisseurship as wine.
Teng travels to China's historic tea mountains most years, working alongside heritage farmers on the harvest and production itself rather than buying finished lots sight unseen. That fieldwork has carried her well outside her own shop — she collaborated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a temporary Chinese tea house installation and wrote the TED-Ed lesson on the history of tea.
Few New York tea rooms are run by someone who spends part of each year actually harvesting alongside the farmers whose leaves end up in the cup — Tea Drunk's East Village space is built directly on that fieldwork.
Marcy and her daughter Lily run this Main Street storefront around certified organic Adirondack maple syrup drawn from family sugarbushes that trace roughly 200 years of regional maple-making tradition. Beyond syrup, they stock maple cream, candy, cocktail mixers and gift boxes the two curate and pack themselves.
Titan Foods in Astoria, the Greek specialty grocer of New York - imported Greek foods, its own Titan Bakery counter with koulourakia and tsoureki, and a full grocery range. First-party door live (titanfoods.net -> titanfoods.com) with store phone and categories.
Toad Hill has boiled sap in a timber-frame sugarhouse on Charles Olds Road for more than three decades, turning it into graded syrup, maple candy, and maple-frosted nuts sold from the farm and shipped nationwide. The family operation, one of the larger maple producers in the southern Adirondacks, also runs seasonal farm tours and a Maple Club for repeat customers.
Yonah Schimmel has hand-rolled and baked knishes on Manhattan's Lower East Side since 1910, filling them fresh daily from the original vegan potato recipe to seasonal flavors. The kosher-certified bakery has been named Best Knish in NYC by both Yelp and TripAdvisor, with knishes shipped nationwide via Goldbelly.
Best for Hand-rolled potato knishes from the original 1910 recipe
Yonah Schimmel has baked knishes on Manhattan's Lower East Side since 1910, making it one of the neighborhood's oldest continuously operating food businesses. The bakery still hand-rolls and stuffs each knish rather than using mechanized production, filling them fresh daily from a range that runs from the classic potato, made to what the bakery calls Uncle Yonah's original recipe and entirely vegan, to seasonal flavors.
The bakery holds full kosher certification, a status maintained through more than a century of ownership changes and neighborhood transformation around it. That combination of age, technique and certification has earned it recognition from both Yelp and TripAdvisor as serving the best knish in New York City.
Beyond the East Houston Street storefront, the bakery has adapted to modern ordering without changing its product: knishes ship nationwide through Goldbelly, arrive via DoorDash, and are available for free local delivery through Sauce, giving a century-old recipe several new ways to reach customers who cannot visit the original shop in person.
A 22-foot appetizing counter in 1934 grew into an Upper West Side institution under Louis and Lillian Zabar. Ninety-plus years later, the family still runs the Broadway corner.
Best for Smoked fish and coffee since 1934, still run by the Zabar family.
Zabar's began in 1934, when Louis and Lillian Zabar rented an appetizing counter inside a Daitch Market before opening their own 22-foot-wide shop at Broadway and West 80th Street. Louis, born Mordko Leib Zabarka in Ukraine, had come to the US through Canada in the early 1920s; his standard for the shop was blunt — he personally visited smokehouses to sample and inspect the fish, rejecting far more than he accepted, and sold nothing he wouldn't buy himself.
His sons, Saul, Stanley, and Eli Zabar, carried the business forward, expanding what counted as a New York specialty item along the way: Zabar's introduced the neighborhood to Brie in the 1960s, sun-dried tomatoes and gnocchi in the 1970s, and caviar in the 1980s, at prices aggressive enough to trigger what regulars still call the "Caviar War" with competing shops. The store has stayed at Broadway and 80th for more than ninety years — smoked fish, coffee roasted on-site, and a family still behind the counter.
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