NYC Chefs All Shop At The Same Eclectic Ingredient Store

If you go to San Francisco's Ferry Plaza Farmers Market early enough on a Saturday morning, you might spot someone pushing a massive cart stacked with bulk quantities of blue oyster mushrooms, micro greens, speckled cranberry beans, fresh fish, and other goods from the chummy vendors. This person is not a confused shopper who thinks they're at an open-air Costco; they're the chef at a local restaurant, or else a member of the staff who's been summoned to pick up the week's produce haul before the market's standard clientele rushes in. But what about all the other foodstuffs that go into a restaurant's menu? 

For a network of restaurant owners in New York City, SOS Chefs is the place to go for hard-to-find ingredients from local and international producers alike. The exterior of the aptly named East Village wholesale shop doesn't announce itself, which means it's always teeming with the good stuff, from rare spices and seasonings to syrups and vinegars. In recent years, it's also garnered a cult following of food-loving laypeople.

From its founding year in 1996 to 2020, SOS Chefs relied on restaurants in New York City and beyond for 90% of its business. The shop recounts its role in delivering "kilos of white truffles sent to a far-off place, 200 Peking ducks for a surprise banquet at a Midtown hotel, [and] special water for a room service request in Los Angeles."

But when eateries reworked their menus for takeout fare at the start of the pandemic — or closed up shop for good — the store decided to let local foodies in on chefs' best-kept secret in order to stay in business. If you ask Atef Boulaabi, the Tunisian-born New York transplant who runs the shop alongside her husband, Adam Berkowitz, the new business model worked out for the best. "The pandemic was also very positive, because we've learned so many other ways to do things, and it made us stronger, relying on our community," she told Eater. 

Atef Boulaabi tells Eater that SOS Chefs carries around 1,200 ethically sourced items from all over the world in the shop, which she packages herself, along with her own homemade teas and fermented products. The shop's spice section alone plays host to a dizzying number of ground and whole treasures, from common baking ingredients like allspice and cinnamon sticks to rarer finds like ajwain seeds (a slightly bitter herb similar to oregano and anise, often used in Indian cuisine), nigella seeds, and plum sesame.

Likewise, those with a yen for fancy salt won't be disappointed by the shop's selection. Options include Iranian blue salt, black lava salt from Cyprus, givre de sel from Egypt, and salt flavored with espresso, vanilla, chipotle peppers, and truffle, just to name a few. 

The multitude of vinegars, however, might be the most special part of the store. Boulaabi makes them in-house, taking inspiration from her grandmother's recipes. They each feature a base of cider vinegar, infused with "the freshest produce and spices around." We're dying to try the date, fig, and orange varieties.