et’s set the record straight right from the beginning: Tarry Market in Port Chester, N.Y. is not a mini Eataly in the suburbs. There’s no wood-burning, gold-dome oven where short, handsome Neapolitan men dress pizza dough with savory toppings. There is no such thing as a vegetable butcher, or, for that matter, fresh vegetables, at least for the moment. Nor is it meant to be a destination with tourist appeal like the
mega-market in New York City. You don’t need a GPS to navigate through the aisles either.
Unlike at Eataly, there are no themed restaurants at Tarry Market (there is a café, but more of that later) where you can sit down at bar or table and indulge in a veal chop smoked in hay or a square of fresh-made lasagna with a luscious ragù sauce. And if you crave a plate of agnolotti in brown butter sauce, well, you will have to buy a pound of it and cook it up at home yourself.
Therein lies the premise that the Batali–Bastianich team wanted for their food emporium in ethnically diverse Port Chester just over the Byram River bridge from Greenwich. The hugely successful team — Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich and Lidia Bastianich — already have a restaurant in the area, Tarry Lodge, where the reservations are as hard to come by as a ticket to a Yankees–Boston Red Sox game.
With the opening of Tarry Market — and Tarry Wine next door, the dynamic trio are saying you, too, can cook great Italian meals at home. You eat at the restaurant, you shop at the market. This place is for foodies who hunger for the hard to find exceptional ingredient for Italian meals to plate up in their own kitchens. It’s also a great place for the curious cook with a bit of adventure in his heretofore hidden Italian soul.
If at first encounter, Tarry Market looks like a spruced-up factory, you’re not far off the mark. The exposed ceiling is latticed with exposed pipes and lighting. The floor is stone and one wall is actually a bay of oversize garage doors. But promenade the aisles where chalkboards that look as they came from shuttered shops of old list specialties and you realize that this store will awaken the unabashed culinary hedonist in you.
The fresh pastas alone will make your head spin: What will you try beyond the familiar cheese ravioli and humble fettuccini — duck liver ravioli, the spinach and veal ravioli or squid-ink pasta? Perhaps some pappardelle to serve with fresh rabbit (a surprising best seller) sold in the meat cases opposite. You’ll be tempted to order a porterhouse steak cut from prime beef dry-aged on site. No hormones, no pesticides and from top-rated American farms. Expensive, yes, but you won’t find this quality elsewhere, for sure. You’ll also want a side of fresh-cooked garlic-scented broccoli rabe or more intriguing, a complex caponata rich with eggplant.
Unlike the shops of Arthur Avenue, which have looked increasingly ragged for the last several years, and where Mike’s Deli no longer has the pull it did when Molly O’Neill bought her mozzarella there, Tarry Market is like a breath of fresh air. There is no doubt that the Batali–Bastianich gustatory triptych of restaurant, food market and the wine store next door has brought a welcomed spit and polish to Port Chester and will inevitably attract other high-end merchants.
The public face of the Tarry enclave very definitely is Joe Bastianich, a man given more to observing than to speaking (unless it’s about Italian wine). Because he is so passionate about the market and its mission, you may find him there at any time of day, talking to floor manager John Branda or to Franco Soprano, a very funny guy who calls himself “a high-paid stock boy” but who is, in fact, the head purchaser.
On weekend nights, you might catch Bastianich conducting wine classes to a mixed audience of young, middle-age and senior folks. Like his mother, he is a good teacher, relaxed, knowledgeable, anxious for you to get the points he is making.
There is so much going on under the one roof, it’s hard to take it all in on the first sweep, from the wine enomatic at the front to the wall of dairy products and cheese cave at the back. For one thing, it’s astonishing how many different dry pastas there are from top-producing regions of Italy. How is it possible there are so many variations on a theme? They come in all shapes and sizes and intensities of yellow.
There’s lots of distressed wood shelving laden with oils and vinegars, pasta sauces and honey, rices and grains. The labels read like a road map of Italy. If you thought the only rice you should use for risotto was carnaroli, look again: There are at least a half dozen other choices.
The salame and salumi are as exciting, offering a whole world beyond soppressata: Try the delicate finocchiona, larger than the usual dry salami and a rare find in these parts. While there are plenty of Italian cheeses from which to choose at the formaggi counter, look also for artisanal selections from the Hudson Valley and for one of our favorites, unpasteurized Stilton, so perfect with pears this time of year. There are torrones (those long white logs crafted from whipped egg whites, honey and nuts) and jars of black fig conserve wrapped in what looks like Grandma’s crocheted doilies.
Italian soft drinks and wines by the glass each have their own niche, either for tasting or for enjoying with a panini at a table in the café that overlooks the main drag. It’s impossible to walk through the café and pass up the apple tarts and peach crisps baked fresh every day. A vending cart that looks as if it were rescued from a neglected farm in Sicily cradles artisanal chocolates from the Little Chocolate Company around the corner and from the Mast Brothers in Brooklyn.
Incredibly, Bastianich says he’ll be adding more groceries every week. Where he will put all of them is a good question. It’s as if he’s determined to bring us the very best of Italian food. He wants us to get excited. The only thing missing would be an impetuous tenor, a young Rodolfo singing soulfully of his love to Mimi. Pasta and opera, a great combination.
“The success of Tarry Lodge really shows that people in this area appreciate simply prepared food using quality, artisanal products — much in the spirit of Italy and the way Italians cook and choose their food,” says Joe Bastianich. “Having a store like Tarry Market makes it easier to recreate this at home. Prior to us coming in, Port Chester didn’t offer this.”
People who drop off their shoes for repair at Occhione can’t seem to pass the market without stopping in to pick up focaccia, spongy and light and deliciously pocketed with briny black olives or punchy with sausage or sweet with tomatoes and prosciutto.
Customers come from Rye and Bedford, Greenwich and Stamford, and from Port Chester. They drop in after an afternoon at the movie theater or returning from Home Depot and even Costco. In fact, they come at all hours of day or evening.
A phoenix rising not quite from ashes but rather from decrepitude, Tarry Market opened its doors just before Christmas 2010. A former elevator factory, the building sat neglected on the busy corner of North Main and Mill streets for many years before Batali–Bastianich took it over, painted the exterior a smart, deep gray flannel and kept the feel of an industrial interior to great effect.
“It’s still a factory,” says Joe Bastianich as he surveys the stations of pasta, bread, tarts and contorni all prepared on-premise from scratch for both the restaurant and the market. “Now, it’s a factory for food.”
Yes, but, oh, what food!
Restaurateur Joe Bastianich of Greenwich in his latest creation - The Tarry Market filled with a variety of Italian food speciaities. Credit Rosemarie T. Anner
Photos (11)
mega-market in New York City. You don’t need a GPS to navigate through the aisles either. Unlike at Eataly, there are no themed restaurants at Tarry Market (there is a café, but more of that later) where you can sit down at bar or table and indulge in a veal chop smoked in hay or a square of fresh-made lasagna with a luscious ragù sauce. And if you crave a plate of agnolotti in brown butter sauce, well, you will have to buy a pound of it and cook it up at home yourself.
Therein lies the premise that the Batali–Bastianich team wanted for their food emporium in ethnically diverse Port Chester just over the Byram River bridge from Greenwich. The hugely successful team — Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich and Lidia Bastianich — already have a restaurant in the area, Tarry Lodge, where the reservations are as hard to come by as a ticket to a Yankees–Boston Red Sox game.
With the opening of Tarry Market — and Tarry Wine next door, the dynamic trio are saying you, too, can cook great Italian meals at home. You eat at the restaurant, you shop at the market. This place is for foodies who hunger for the hard to find exceptional ingredient for Italian meals to plate up in their own kitchens. It’s also a great place for the curious cook with a bit of adventure in his heretofore hidden Italian soul.
If at first encounter, Tarry Market looks like a spruced-up factory, you’re not far off the mark. The exposed ceiling is latticed with exposed pipes and lighting. The floor is stone and one wall is actually a bay of oversize garage doors. But promenade the aisles where chalkboards that look as they came from shuttered shops of old list specialties and you realize that this store will awaken the unabashed culinary hedonist in you.
The fresh pastas alone will make your head spin: What will you try beyond the familiar cheese ravioli and humble fettuccini — duck liver ravioli, the spinach and veal ravioli or squid-ink pasta? Perhaps some pappardelle to serve with fresh rabbit (a surprising best seller) sold in the meat cases opposite. You’ll be tempted to order a porterhouse steak cut from prime beef dry-aged on site. No hormones, no pesticides and from top-rated American farms. Expensive, yes, but you won’t find this quality elsewhere, for sure. You’ll also want a side of fresh-cooked garlic-scented broccoli rabe or more intriguing, a complex caponata rich with eggplant.
Unlike the shops of Arthur Avenue, which have looked increasingly ragged for the last several years, and where Mike’s Deli no longer has the pull it did when Molly O’Neill bought her mozzarella there, Tarry Market is like a breath of fresh air. There is no doubt that the Batali–Bastianich gustatory triptych of restaurant, food market and the wine store next door has brought a welcomed spit and polish to Port Chester and will inevitably attract other high-end merchants.
The public face of the Tarry enclave very definitely is Joe Bastianich, a man given more to observing than to speaking (unless it’s about Italian wine). Because he is so passionate about the market and its mission, you may find him there at any time of day, talking to floor manager John Branda or to Franco Soprano, a very funny guy who calls himself “a high-paid stock boy” but who is, in fact, the head purchaser.
On weekend nights, you might catch Bastianich conducting wine classes to a mixed audience of young, middle-age and senior folks. Like his mother, he is a good teacher, relaxed, knowledgeable, anxious for you to get the points he is making.
There is so much going on under the one roof, it’s hard to take it all in on the first sweep, from the wine enomatic at the front to the wall of dairy products and cheese cave at the back. For one thing, it’s astonishing how many different dry pastas there are from top-producing regions of Italy. How is it possible there are so many variations on a theme? They come in all shapes and sizes and intensities of yellow.
There’s lots of distressed wood shelving laden with oils and vinegars, pasta sauces and honey, rices and grains. The labels read like a road map of Italy. If you thought the only rice you should use for risotto was carnaroli, look again: There are at least a half dozen other choices.
The salame and salumi are as exciting, offering a whole world beyond soppressata: Try the delicate finocchiona, larger than the usual dry salami and a rare find in these parts. While there are plenty of Italian cheeses from which to choose at the formaggi counter, look also for artisanal selections from the Hudson Valley and for one of our favorites, unpasteurized Stilton, so perfect with pears this time of year. There are torrones (those long white logs crafted from whipped egg whites, honey and nuts) and jars of black fig conserve wrapped in what looks like Grandma’s crocheted doilies.
Italian soft drinks and wines by the glass each have their own niche, either for tasting or for enjoying with a panini at a table in the café that overlooks the main drag. It’s impossible to walk through the café and pass up the apple tarts and peach crisps baked fresh every day. A vending cart that looks as if it were rescued from a neglected farm in Sicily cradles artisanal chocolates from the Little Chocolate Company around the corner and from the Mast Brothers in Brooklyn.
Incredibly, Bastianich says he’ll be adding more groceries every week. Where he will put all of them is a good question. It’s as if he’s determined to bring us the very best of Italian food. He wants us to get excited. The only thing missing would be an impetuous tenor, a young Rodolfo singing soulfully of his love to Mimi. Pasta and opera, a great combination.
“The success of Tarry Lodge really shows that people in this area appreciate simply prepared food using quality, artisanal products — much in the spirit of Italy and the way Italians cook and choose their food,” says Joe Bastianich. “Having a store like Tarry Market makes it easier to recreate this at home. Prior to us coming in, Port Chester didn’t offer this.”
People who drop off their shoes for repair at Occhione can’t seem to pass the market without stopping in to pick up focaccia, spongy and light and deliciously pocketed with briny black olives or punchy with sausage or sweet with tomatoes and prosciutto.
Customers come from Rye and Bedford, Greenwich and Stamford, and from Port Chester. They drop in after an afternoon at the movie theater or returning from Home Depot and even Costco. In fact, they come at all hours of day or evening.
A phoenix rising not quite from ashes but rather from decrepitude, Tarry Market opened its doors just before Christmas 2010. A former elevator factory, the building sat neglected on the busy corner of North Main and Mill streets for many years before Batali–Bastianich took it over, painted the exterior a smart, deep gray flannel and kept the feel of an industrial interior to great effect.
“It’s still a factory,” says Joe Bastianich as he surveys the stations of pasta, bread, tarts and contorni all prepared on-premise from scratch for both the restaurant and the market. “Now, it’s a factory for food.”
Yes, but, oh, what food!
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