By Caroline Benveniste
I recently returned from a trip to Paris. While there, I stayed with my aunt, who lives in a residential area in the 17th Arrondissement not far from the Parc Monceau. One of the best things about her neighborhood is that she is only a block or so from a wonderful pedestrian market street, Rue de Lévis. I have been shopping there for over 40 years, and it never fails to delight. The selection, diversity, and quality are unparalleled. When I returned home, I started fantasizing about a market street in the Village. How convenient it would be to find all of my favorite shops on one street! Here is how I would arrange things:
Bread/Pastries: There are five boulangeries/patisseries on the Rue de Lévis, but everyone says that Maison Delmontel is the best, particularly for bread. They won the Best Baguette in Paris Award in 2007 and won second place for Best Organic Bread last year. On the Village street, we would have Maison Kayser, a French import with excellent bread and pastries, and Patisserie Claude for its viennoiseries (e.g., croissants, brioches) and their Paris-Brest pastry, when they have it.
Fish: Strangely, there is but one fish store in the market, La Fine Marée. Our Village equivalent would be The Lobster Place.
Meat/Poultry: There are about five butcher shops, and the street is filled with the intoxicating smell of roast chicken coming from the outdoor rotisseries. Ottomanelli & Sons Meat Market and Florence Meat Market carry most of the same meat cuts, but Citarella would be the choice for chicken.
Italian Products: There is a store called Italian Cucina which stocks Italian products; it bears some similarity to Buon’Italia.
Honey: Famille Mary is a store dedicated to honey and other apiary products. They even sell honey with propolis which is said to alleviate coughs. Our market would feature Andrew’s Local Honey from the Union Square Greenmarket which has hives in New York and Connecticut as well as rooftop honey collected from most of the boroughs.
Gourmet Foods/Spices: Macis Maison de Saveurs is an épicerie which carries spices, mustards, jams, and other gourmet foods. Similar products can be found at Chelsea Market Baskets and Spices and Tease.
Health Food: Naturalia sells a standard selection of health food products on Rue de Lévis. The somewhat sterile interior reminds me more of LifeThyme than of Integral Yoga.
Wine: There are three wine stores—Le Repaire de Bacchus, Nicolas, and nysa. My aunt favored Le Repaire de Bacchus until they changed ownership; I found nysa promising. If I’m not making the trip to Astor Place Wines & Spirits, I purchase my liquor at Crossroads Wine & Spirits.
Cheese: La Fromagerie is located on Rue de Lévis, but just around the corner is the superior Androuet. Their selection is almost exclusively French, and the sheer number of chevre (goat cheese) is mind-boggling. Murray’s Cheese and now Saxelby Cheesemongers would be reasonable facsimiles.
Hardware: Renovex carries the usual hardware store inventory, as well as some more unusual items, such as mare’s milk soap, something that you won’t find at Barney’s Hardware in the Village.
Chocolate: I counted three chocolate stores on the street—Le Cacaotier, Jeff de Bruges, and De Neuville. We also have three in the Village—Li-Lac Chocolates, ROYCE’ Chocolate, and See’s Candies.
Cookies: La Fabrique Cookies sells only cookies, as do our two Village outposts of Insomnia Cookies.
Fruits & Vegetables: There are three large, lovely fruit shops—Le Petit Jardin, Lévis-Terrasse, and Lévis Primeurs, as well as a smaller, organic-only (or ‘bio’ as it is called in France) Les Fruits de la Terre, all with exuberant displays on the street. The variety and quality of the mushrooms always astounds me. I purchased girolles (what we call ‘chanterelles’), cèpes (‘porcini’), chanterelles (I’m not sure what they are called here), and pied de mouton (‘hedgehog’), all for a fraction of what I would have paid in New York. Manhattan Fruit Market and the fruit and vegetable section of Westside Market have a reasonable selection of produce but the quality falls short.
Coffee and Tea: Comptoirs Richard has a selection of coffees and teas, and Palais des Thés is a fancy tea shop which used to have stores in New York until they all closed a few years ago. McNulty’s Tea & Coffee Co. specializes in coffee but also has a large tea selection. DAVIDsTEA sells loose tea and is well-regarded by tea drinkers.
Traiteurs/Prepared Foods: There are two traiteurs on Rue de Lévis—Boucherie Aurélien and Maison Bouvier—both with a wide array of salads and hot dishes. The closest we have to these would be Feast on Us which started out as a caterer, but now also offers prepared food to go.
Frozen Food: Picard is a store dedicated solely to frozen food. There are frozen vegetables, herbs, and other ingredients as well as frozen prepared foods such as quiches and tarts. Nothing quite like this exists here, but Trader Joe’s does have a large array of frozen foods.
Ice Cream: They have Amorino and we have Amorino.
Olive Oil: They have Oliviers & Co. and we have Oliviers & Co.
Meringue Bakery: La Meringaie features meringue cakes, and Aux Merveilleux de Fred has small, medium, and large filled meringues and different flavors of brioches. We have our own Aux Merveilleux de Fred, which is the only one in the U.S.
Some stores I visited in Paris just don’t exist here. On Rue de Lévis there is Première Pression Provence, which sells products exclusively from Provence. Another, Les Grands D’Espagne, sells only products from Spain, and yet another, Calissons du Roy René, sells calissons—an almond-shaped confection and specialty of Aix-en-Provence. It is made with marzipan and covered in white icing.
At the end of the street, there is a large store called Monoprix. On the west side of the street, they have a store for non-food items which looks something like a Target. Across the street, on the east side, they have an extensive, well-stocked supermarket, similar to Brooklyn Fare. You may wonder why anyone would shop there when all of the myriad shops of the Rue de Lévis are at their disposal. There are three reasons: (1) Some people just prefer to do all of their shopping in one place; (2) Some items, such as milk, yogurt, sugar, flour, crackers, etc. are not readily available at the other shops; and (3) If you’ve ever been food shopping in Paris, you know that most shops are closed Sunday afternoon and all of Monday, but not the Monoprix.
The West Village establishments referenced in this article are listed below:
Maison Kayser
326 Bleecker Street (at Christopher Street)
Patisserie Claude
187 West 4th Street (between Jones and Barrow Streets)
The Lobster Place—Chelsea Market
75 9th Avenue (between West 15th and West 16th Streets)
Ottomanelli & Sons Meat Market
285 Bleecker Street (between 7th Avenue South and Jones Street)
Florence Meat Market
5 Jones Street (near West 4th Street)
Citarella
464 6th Avenue (between West 9th and West 10th Streets)
Buon’Italia—Chelsea Market,
75 9th Avenue (between West 15th and West 16th Streets)
Andrew’s Local Honey—
nion Square Greenmarket, 16th Street and Union Square West
Chelsea Market Baskets—Chelsea Market,
75 9th Avenue (between West 15th and West 16th Streets)
Spices and Tease—Chelsea Market,
75 9th Avenue (between West 15th and West 16th Streets)
LifeThyme Natural Market
410 6th Avenue (between West 8th and West 9th Streets)
Crossroads Wine & Spirits
52 West 14th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
Murray’s Cheese
254 Bleecker Street (between Leroy and Cornelia Streets)
Saxelby Cheesemongers—Chelsea Market,
75 9th Avenue (between West 15th and West 16th Streets)
Barney’s Hardware
467 6th Avenue (at West 11th Street)
Li-Lac Chocolates
40 8th Avenue (at Jane Street)
ROYCE’ Chocolate
253 Bleecker Street (between Leroy and Cornelia Streets)
See’s Candies
60 West 8th Street (near 6th Avenue)
Insomnia Cookies
116 MacDougal Street (between Bleecker Street and Minetta Lane);
304 West 14th Street (between 8th Avenue and Hudson Street)
Manhattan Fruit Market—Chelsea Market
75 9th Avenue (between West 15th and West 16th Streets)
Westside Market
77 7th Avenue (between West 14th and West 15th Streets) (The entrance to the fruit section is on 14th Street.)
McNulty’s Tea & Coffee Co.
109 Christopher Street (between Bedford and Bleecker Streets)
DAVIDsTEA
275 Bleecker Street (between Jones and Morton Streets)
Feast on Us
645 Hudson Street (between Horatio and Gansevoort Streets)
Trader Joe’s
675 6th Avenue (at 21st Street)
Amorino
60 University Place (at East 10th Street)
Oliviers & Co.
249 Bleecker Street (at Leroy Street)
Aux Merveilleux de Fred
37 8th Avenue (between Jane and West 4th Streets)
Brooklyn Fare
666 Greenwich Street (between Barrow and Christopher Streets)
