You have entered one of the world's greatest indoor food marketplaces.
Chelsea Market is a collection of restaurants and a shopping mall, occupying an entire block
in Chelsea, New York City, offering dozens of great places to eat and many exciting retail
outlets.
For example, at Los Tacos No. 1 they have an authentic taste that comes from family
recipes, and from fresh, simple and tasteful ingredients.
They say in every taco there is a bit of true Mexican culture and flavor.
It's part of this amazing international kaleidoscope of foods from all over the world.
Very Fresh Noodles is another popular spot – high-quality hand pulled and hand pressed
Chinese noodle shop, and we will come back here and a little while and see more of it.
You can eat standing up, New York style fast food, but notice there are no McDonald's,
Burger King, KFC, no typical fast food joints in here.
And you can also find some places to sit down, maybe with your family and friends, relax
and have a meal.
The market occupies the street level and basement of a large brick building.
It had been the headquarters of the Nabisco National Biscuit Company back in the early
20th century.
It's located right next to the High Line, that elevated park which actually passes right
through the building's 10th Ave. side.
This allowed freight trains on these formerly elevated tracks to enter directly within the
building itself.
In the early 20th century, trains of the High Line had served the wholesale butchers who
lined the streets beneath the tracks.
This abandoned elevated railroad track has been converted to an urban oasis, forming
a continuous route all the way up to Hudson Yards.
Curiously, although the Highline goes right through the building, there is no direct connection
to get in to the Chelsea Market down below.
It's a little tricky, but there is a staircase – there's no sign marking that that'll lead
you to the Chelsea Market – but you'll see it.
And you walk down the steps and across the street, take a look up at the heavy metal
construction of the underside of the Highline, then walk around the corner, and there you'll
find the entrance to the marketplace.
The market is located in the lower west side of Manhattan between 15th St. and 16th St.,
and between 9th and 10th Avenues in what's called the meatpacking district next to Chelsea.
We've just walked in the 10th Ave. doorway and earlier you saw the façade over on the
9th Avenue side.
It goes through the entire city block.
Chelsea Market opened in 1997, but retained the stripped-down brick architecture of the
original building, showcasing the industrial design and character, easy to navigate because
there is one long interior arcade with shops and restaurants along both sides of it.
The market has an excellent website that lists all of the stores, restaurants and vendors
that are located here, providing brief descriptions and links to the websites of each one of these
merchants, many of whom sell their merchandise over the Internet.
During the video I'll be sharing with you some of those descriptions.
There are vegetable markets, cheese markets, wine markets and clothing stores, and bookstores,
part of the market's collection of distinctive and diverse merchants.
It's not just an average food all, but rather a lively marketplace and we will be describing
a lot of the shops as we walk through it.
Friedman's Lunch is the ideal spot for homemade comfort food with affordable prices.
Then there's Suzette Crêperie with sweet and savory crêpes made fresh to order or
French macron, hot chocolates, beer and wine.
Takumi Taco offers Japanese-inspired Mexican food.
Lobster Place has been here from the beginning as a one-of-a-kind seafood hall where you
can explore all that the ocean has to offer.
Crack into a fresh steamed lobster with a cold beer in your hand.
The market is on seven days a week with most restaurants open till nine during the weekend,
10 o'clock on the weekends.
Creamlime is a fast, casual restaurant that serves farm-sourced American classics including
burgers, shakes, fries and ice cream, straightforward authentic food using the best ingredients.
Mayhem beer and sandwiches is a New York City-based artisan sandwich shop focusing on pairing
local and hard-to-find craft beer with unique spins on classic sandwiches, also with a branch
at Park Avenue and 45th St..
Some dining seats offer a ringside view of the passing parade of people.
Lilac is Manhattan's oldest chocolate house, opened in 1923.
They claim to have the largest selection of fresh gourmet chocolate in America.
And there's Berlin Currywurst, a treasured German street food with varieties of pork,
beef, chicken, and tofu.
The dining arrangement, whether you're standing or sitting, is really ideal here for socializing
and making some new friends.
You'll be sitting next to somebody and maybe ask, how's the food, and get into an interesting
conversation here.
In 2018 Google's parent company Alphabet purchased Chelsea Market and the entire building for
more than $2.4 billion.
It's been called one of the most expensive real estate transactions for a single building
in the history of New York.
Google occupies some of the upper floors, including YouTube on the fifth floor.
Chelsea Wine Vault and Storage is dedicated to selling only fine wines.
Famous clothing store Anthropologie offers a one-of-a-kind and compelling shopping experience
for women who appreciate innovation artfulness and good design.
Miznan created a new kind of Mediterranean street food with seasonally inspired ingred,
ients offering a variety of pita sandwiches, veggie sides and more.
It's their interpretation of Israeli street food in a fast, casual setting.
With branches in Tel Aviv, Paris, Vienna and Melbourne, they opened here and 2018.
Another pleasure to enjoy here is that fine sport of people-watching.
With so many visitors streaming through from all over the world, they put on quite a show.
About midway through the market, you'll be walking through this splendid curtain of white
lights, hanging like drapery.
It's a landmark that points to the lower level of the marketplace, called Chelsea Local,
with more shops down below and another big concourse.
You might get some free samples down here.
Saxelby Cheesemongers work directly with over 50 small-scale local farms and producers to
source the best cheeses and dairy products.
They opened here in the market in 2017.
Buon'Italia, a gourmet Italian grocery store, has offered its customers an authentic taste
of Italy for over 20 years.
Recognized for its extensive range of high-quality imported Italian food and other related products.
One shop over, we're coming up now on Black Seed Appetizing, known for their unique bagels
that combine New York City baking techniques, and that Montréal style.
And here they go beyond bagels and sandwiches to offer a classic Jewish appetizing foods.
They've got premium smoked fish by the pound and a lot more.
The Manhattan fruit market illustrates how this Chelsea Market is not just for tourists,
but for locals who live in the area and want to come in and get some excellent produce,
and everything you would find in a full range supermarket, from delicious seasonal apples
to rare Dragon fruit and lychee.
They've only got unblemished items all arranged like works of art.
This store has it all, variety of potatoes, mushrooms, peppers, lettuces, herbs.
The market also offers one-of-a-kind fruit and vegetables not found in ordinary food
stores, anything you would need to cook a great meal.
Dixons Farm Stand meats wlli offer a grilled steak, hotdogs, sandwiches, chicken, and a
variety of salads.
There's even a little area for kids to sit and play.
So be sure to go downstairs and enjoy Chelsea Central with all these other shops, then back
up onto the main level, with a lot more to see.
That brings you to the middle of the marketplace, with that curtain of white lights hanging,
and there's a nice eating area there with communal tables for the take-out foods.
And just behind that you'll reach one of the largest stores, the Pearl River Mart, featuring
Asian inspired gifts, fashions and ceramics from exciting Asian-American designers.
Since then Pearl River has cultivated a reputation for being the place where you can find just
about anything, Buddhist statues, rice snacks, chopsticks, along with countless things you
can't even name.
Many customers walk through the doors, not knowing what they want, only to walk out later
with exactly what they were looking for.
It's amazing that these large retail spaces and restaurants are occupying what had been
an old Nabisco factory making cookies, including the Oreo that they invented here.
The building was constructed back in the 1890s and Nabisco stayed here until 1958, and the
building was somewhat abandoned, and then renovated, taken over by a new owner, Irwin
Cohen with Jeff Vanderburg and Vanderburg Architects in the 1990s, converting it into
this dazzling mall.
Notice the time.
It's 1:45.
We're here on a weekday early in the month of March, and it is still super busy.
If you got here at noon, imagine the lunch counters are going to have a line in front
of every one of them.
As mentioned at the beginning, we've come back for a closer look at Very Fresh Noodles.
You could take away to one of those communal table areas or , if you can find a seat at
their narrow counter, you can watch the show as this fellow makes fresh noodles, swinging
them and slamming them on the counter.
The retail complex was created after a lot of hard work that connected the original back
lots of several individual buildings and broke down some walls to create this central concourse
with the shops extending out on both sides.
When done, you can step out onto 9th Avenue and take a walk in this fine urban neighborhood,
that will bring you right into Chelsea.
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