An Urban Foodie’s Dream: Foragers Sets Up Shop in Chelsea

So...grocery shopping in New York City (specifically Manhattan) can be a pretty depressing experience. While Manhattanites are often thought of as food snobs, the reality is that at many bodegas grocery stores in the city, you’ll be paying high prices for for less-than-quality produce, meat and dairy. As a result, many of our fridges stock little more than some eggs and a bottle of Srichacha.

Enter Foragers City Market, the brainchild of Anna Castellani, Richard Lamb, and Clifford Shikler. Originally imagined as a gourmet market in DUMBO, Foragers strives to bring the farm to the city, providing quality meats, fish, eggs, produce, and pantry ingredients to ignite in urban shoppers a love of quality food. Wanting to get Manhattanites in on the goodness, the founders recently decided to open a second location in an airy space in Chelsea. The new Foragers boasts an Asian-fusion-esque restaurant (Foragers City Table) as well as a fully stocked wine shop. "Our goal is to keep Foragers an urban market," says Castellani. "We want to avoid any of the crunchy, hippie connotations of local, organic food."

The Foragers experience is nothing short of a foodie’s dream. In the market, you can find everything from house-made bean dip and Bloody Mary mix to organic kumquats and lacinato kale. Pick up pantry treats such as gray sea salt, handmade chocolate bars from Brooklyn-based Mast Brothers Chocolate, and organic polenta from the Hudson Valley that will make delicious business of the simplest tomato sauce. You can find ice cream from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams (we love the lemon frozen yogurt) and rostisserie chickens from Quebec that taste so delightfully chicken-y that will make you wonder why you ever settled for grocery store birds.

Oh, and the restaurant will blow your mind, too (three words: tea smoked cod), but what we’re most excited about is how Foragers is bringing the farm (and the inspiration) to New Yorkers. Click through for pics of the so-yummy stock and let’s get cooking.