NY Fancy Food Show 2009

July 6, 2009

We just got back from New York, where we went to the summer Fancy Food Show. We don’t usually buy many things at shows like this (too big for us) but it’s a great excuse to get back east, eat some great food, visit with confectioners (more about that in upcoming blog posts) and see friends and family. We stayed in a new hotel on the Lower East Side, just around the corner from our favorite place in the world, Russ & Daughters (better than Zabar’s!)

Back to the show…. We did it somewhat differently than we usually do, in that we wrote down all the people we wanted to see and mostly stuck to that list. It’s just too easy to get distracted by round after round of cheese, cured meats, and every flavor of gelato you can imagine. Not to say, we didn’t spend a good ten minutes in what I like to call the cheese cave (see pics below) and have a pig part or two, but we were much more focused on the business at hand: seeking out smaller confectioners with unique products.

We were somewhat turned off by the shear amount of chocolate at this show — at least twice that of last year. Just because you have money and like chocolate doesn’t necessarily mean you should be making it. Software engineer last month, chocolatier this month. If most of it was good, that would be one thing, but so much of it is either boring or just plain bad. But there were some gems — a Belgian chocolatier who shares our passion for quality, presentation, and most of all taste. If all things go as planned, we will be buying directly from him in the not so distant future — truly some of the best chocolates we have ever tasted, and we could not be more excited about the prospect of carrying them. It was also nice to finally meet Joan Coukos, owner of Chocolat Moderne, a line we love and have been carrying since we opened the store.

That’s it for now. We’ll have more on our visit in upcoming blogs. Also stay tuned for info on new products.

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