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I happen to love to cook, and New York City, particularly the Village and Chelsea, offers some incredible places to buy the raw product to create a culinary masterpiece. Even if cooking is not your forte, many of the stores listed here sell prepared or partially prepared foods to help you on your way.
Just to the west of the Law School, crossing Sixth Avenue veering left on Cornelia to Bleecker, you will encounter a plethora of small shops where you can get the makings for wonderful meals. This is my all-time favorite place to food shop because it is so uniquely European in flavor, and yet so quintessentially New York. The only thing missing here is the late, lamented Zito bakery, a recent victim of the low carbohydrate craze. If you could only have smelled the aroma of their freshly baked whole wheat loaves, you would understand my grief.
Vegetable Garden, 233 Bleecker Street: As far as New York greengrocers go, this is one of the best. It features seasonal produce at extremely reasonable prices
Bruno Italian Bakery, 245 Bleecker Street: Stop here for traditional Italian biscotti or slices of Italian style pizza. They also have great cookies that make a thoughtful gift to take to a dinner party.
Murray's Cheese, corner of Cornelia and Bleecker Streets: Quite simply, this is the mother of all New York cheese shops. They cram more varieties of cheese, spreads, olives, crackers, bread sticks and other savory foods than you could possibly imagine.
Faicco's Italian Sausage, 257 Bleecker Street: This place has been around for the better part of the last century, and has some of the best sausage and other Italian specialties--including the greatest prepared items that I have ever tasted.
Florence Prime Meat Market, 5 Jones Street: This is simply the best butcher in the City, no question about it. From my annual Thanksgiving turkey to their trademark Newport Steaks, I have never had a bad cut of meat here. Plus, like many of these shops, it is such a throwback to another time that it makes the chore of shopping an enjoyable activity.
Winesby.com, 23 Jones Street: This shop is a paradox. It is a specialty wine shop with about 80 available varieties at one time and an extremely knowledgeable and helpful wine merchant, but they also have a website where you can go to order the selection online and expect delivery anywhere in Manhattan in under 80 minutes. Conceivably, you could start your shopping spree here, request delivery, and have your wine waiting for you when you returned from your errands.
Fish, 280 Bleecker Street: Not only is Fish a popular seafood cafe, they offer the catch of the day for sale direct to the consumer. Any season of the year, they offer a terrific variety of very fresh seafood, and they will shuck the oysters so you don't have to (just hurry home and eat them).
Cones, 272 Bleecker Street: A relative newcomer to the Street, Cones was started in 1998 by two brothers who were disappointed at the availability of good Italian style gelato and sorbetto. Their variety of unique flavors and consistently good quality has made Cones a hit with locals and tourists alike.
Gourmet Garage, 111 Seventh Avenue South: Just a few blocks north, between Christopher and West Tenth Streets, you'll find anything else on your list that you weren't able to get thus far. Theoretically, you could do all your shopping here, since Gourmet Garage has a reasonably priced selection of prepared entrees, salads and soups, breads and rolls, vegetables and fruits, juices and beverages, desserts, cheeses, crackers, flowers, as well as a fishmonger and a butcher counter. I just personally think the whole Bleecker Street experience is a lot more fun.
Located at Ninth Avenue and West Fifteenth Street, where the Meat Packing District meets Chelsea and housed in a former Nabisco Cookie Factory, the Chelsea Market has been thriving for about seven years. Chelsea Market houses great shops including Amy's Bread, also on Bleecker, which like many of the others offers café service in a storefront that also sells its wares for home consumption. Throw in a wonderful fish market, a wine store with a great selection and numerous free tastings, Fat Witch Brownie Bakery, Manhattan Fruit Exchange (how they sell their excellent produce this cheap, I'll never know), a shop that specializes in all things Italian, and all the other ventures, and you have a way to get your errands done that's also a great way to spend an afternoon.
The only thing that you need to know about Citarella is that it is located in what was once the awesome Balducci's. They have great seafood, but are a bit pricy, and just not as good or as much fun as Balducci's on 8th Avenue and 14th Street.
Jefferson Market, on Sixth Avenue just north of West Tenth Street, is a great Village institution, and you can phone or fax your orders. I still haven't forgiven them for moving across the street and it's been nearly ten years. I guess I hold a grudge. In fact, though, with the influx of Chelsea Market and the convenience of Fresh Direct, I just forget that they're there.
Freshdirect.com has quite simply changed my life. From the comfort of my own home (okay, I'm busted, sometimes the office, too) I can shop for a party or for a week's worth of groceries, choose a two hour window for delivery, get wine or beer at the same time, and I don't even have to tip the delivery person. The food and pricing are fair, but you do have to be careful since some items irrationally skew high (like Oreo cookies). But their prepared foods are quite good and very well priced.
Zabar's, on the Upper West Side, is good if only for their free samples and very inexpensive cheese specials (a recent trip yielded a wedge of Presidente brie for $.99). I must advise you to stay away from Zabar's on Saturday and Sundays after 11:00 a.m. Those hungry crowds of Upper West Siders can get crazy if you get between them and their free chicken sausage samples.