New Food Market, With a Touch of Italy, Opens in Peconic

A taste of Italy is coming to the North Fork.

Sarah and Anthony Nappa, who own the Winemaker Studio on Peconic Lane, have opened a new food market in the adjoining space -- the site where Taste of the North Fork was formerly located.

So far, the new business, which has been operating since February, has only had a "soft" opening, but a Grand Opening is planned for Memorial Day weekend.

Provisions & Ingredients features Italian cured meats and New York state cheeses; the store will also continue to sell Taste of the North Fork products. The shop also offers a selection of dried goods including organic beans and grains from upstate New York, dried pastas imported from Italy, New York State craft beers, ice creams made from Hudson Valley fresh milk, local eggs from Browder's Birds and Deep Roots Farms, local pork from Deep Roots Farms in Orient, large cans of tomatoes from Italy, New York and Vermont cured meats and many other Italian market items.

When the store opened in February, only cheese and "salumi" plates were offered. "'Salumi' is the general word for all cured meats from Italy," Sarah Nappa said. 

The menu was create over the ensuing months, as the couple determined what customers were looking for. Over the past weekend, a snack menu of various tapas/pinxos and pressed sandwiches was introduced, and will be offered throughout the summer. 

Espresso coffee drinks are available to drink in the store, but not to go.

"Anthony and I both come from Italian families and grew up eating a lot of these foods," Nappa said. "There aren't very many options on the North Fork to find a lot of these items, so we brought them to us. It's basically a collection of foods we like to eat and we hope other people do, too."

She added, "When people come in and ask us if it's all local food, we like to say that it's not all local food, but rather food for locals."

The Nappas are very active in, and supportive of, the local food and wine movement on the North Fork, she said; a cooperative-style tasting room was opened in July, 2011t to support their own brand as well as those produced by other local winemakers. 

"We carry many local foods and support farmers in our own backyard," Nappa said. "The food we offer is exactly how the name reads - we offer provisions and ingredients and try to keep the food as 'real' as possible."