Five Fantastic Food Fairs!

New York has always been home to ethnic restaurants representing cultures around the globe, some of the world’s finest upscale dining, a wide variety of cheap eats, and, as this blog discussed previously, supermarkets of many varieties.  What the city has not had until very recently is a culture of food fairs and festivals.  For a long time there have been farmer’s markets, and certainly sidewalk street vendors selling hot dogs and pretzels.  It’s only in the past five years, though, that the city has become home to hundreds of artisanal chefs and food crafters, making and selling their own custom foods ranging from tacos to cupcakes to pickles to pretzels and many more.  Alongside this development, a number of destination-worthy food festivals have popped up across the city — some weekly, some monthly, and some just once a year — where you can sample some of the best and most unique eats New York has to offer.

Here are some of the top fairs to check out:

1. Smorgasburg (Year-round, every Saturday and Sunday in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Subway: L (Bedford Ave.) through March, more locations in the spring)

Indoors during the winter and outdoors all summer long, Smorgasburg is the food festival that started it all. With 75 food vendors (spiking to 100 in the spring and summer) Smorgasburg started as an offshoot of the weekly Brooklyn Flea Market but became an event all its own in 2008.  Since then, it has become an institution, and an incubator for restaurants of the future — if you want to discover your favorite new restaurant two years before it opens, Smorgasburg is the place to be.  Despite long lines when the weather’s friendly, crowds have only grown — cobbling together lunch from vendors selling foods as diverse as fried anchovies, steamed buns, and homemade sausages.

(Photo by sukhchander)

2. New Amsterdam Market (Various Sundays throughout the year, South Street between Beekman Street and Peck Slip, Manhattan. Subway: A/C (Broadway Nassau), 2/3/4/5/J ( Fulton Street))

Having just finished up its 2013 season on December 15th, New Amsterdam Market is a combination farmer’s market and food festival held in the shadow of the South Street Seaport (at the southern tip of Manhattan).  The market changes each time, often around a seasonal theme, with demonstrations and events accompanying the food — a holiday garland tutorial for Christmas, or a cider theme for Thanksgiving, for instance.  Vendors vary but often include a number of cheesemakers, ice cream vendors, fishmongers, bakers, and many more, a mix of stalwarts from among the city’s farmers markets, food trucks, and up-and-coming restaurants.  Over 400 vendors have sold their goods at New Amsterdam Market since it began in 2005.

(Photo by New Amsterdam Market)

3. Madison Square Eats (Approximately one month each spring and fall, Madison Square Park, East 23rd Street and Madison Avenue, Manhattan. Subway: N/R (23rd Street), 6 (23rd Street))

This pop-up market brightens the Flatiron district for a month each spring and fall (usually April and October).  Dozens of the city’s best food vendors gather in one location with ample seating and a beautiful park location.  Entering its sixth year, Madison Square Eats has become a highlight of the year especially for young people looking to sample the best the city has to offer without having to spend the money for a sit-down restaurant meal or travel to the far-flung corners of the city to try the pizza they’ve been craving.  The vendor mix changes each time, but Roberta’s Pizza (which has a hugely popular restaurant in Bushwick, Brooklyn), the Red Hook Lobster Pound, and food truck favorite Calexico are among the highlights.

(Photo by Alexis Lamster)

4. Hester Street Fair (Saturdays from April through October, plus a holiday market daily in December; regular location is the corner of Hester St. and Essex St., Manhattan (Subway: F/J/M/Z (Delancey St.) or F (East Broadway)), holiday market is at 29th Street and 6th Avenue, Manhattan (B/D/F/M (34th Street), N/R (28th Street), 1 (28th Street))).

The Hester Street Fair, on the historic grounds of an old pushcart market from a hundred years ago, curates a mix some of the city’s top vendors, mixing food and shopping, with many offerings seen nowhere else.  Known particularly for one-item specialists — Bibingka-esk, for instance, serving traditional Filipino desserts, or BiteMe mini cheesecakes — the Hester Street Fair has launched a number of vendors who went on to start food trucks or open brick-and-mortar restaurants.  The non-food vendors sell handmade candles, soaps, and jewelry.

(Photo by Nicolas Boullosa)

5. Moegyo Humanitarian Foundation Annual Burmese Food Fair (one Sunday each June, Aviation High School in Long Island City, 45-30 36th Street, Queens. Subway: 7 (33rd Street / Rawson St)).

One Sunday each June, Burmese home cooks gather in a school cafeteria selling their homemade specialties — and showing just how diverse the city can be.  For just a few dollars, you can eat like a native, enjoying tea leaf salad, fish soup, fluorescent pink-colored desserts and much, much more.  And this is only one of many similar festivals that happen throughout the city’s ethnic enclaves — adventurous eaters can be on the lookout for information on websites like Eating in Translation, which chronicle the far-flung and obscure ethnic eats in Manhattan and the outer boroughs.

(Photo by Gary Soup)

Hopefully these five food festivals give you a head start toward finding your favorite, and discovering all the diversity that the city has to offer a hungry New Yorker.  Happy eating!