Best 25 Markets in the World

[rgruby]

I haven't seen Food and Wine's complete list, but the Toronto Star published a couple of articles on the St. Lawrence Market, which is on the list.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...d=1078960507946

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...d=1078960507949

What other markets made the list?

What are your favourites? What are their specialities/ strengths?

Cheers,

Geoff Ruby

[Squeat Mungry]

I found the whole list here.

First on list: SF's own Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market. Score one for the home team!

Cheers,

Squeat

Edited March 17, 2004 by Squeat Mungry (log)

[plax]

I've been to the Cours Saleya in Nice on many occasions (though not in the last ten years or so), and it is a fabulous market. But how can you fail, a block inland from the Mediterranean? I remember in particular those wonderful little Cavaillon melons, piles of ruby-red cherries, and the adjacent fish market.

[KatieLoeb]

Any list that doesn't include the Reading Terminal or the Italian Markets in Philadelphia is incomplete.

[paul mitchell]

What no hommage to the Mecca of Meat at Athens Central Market? Where not only do the vendors smoke but there are all these decapitated pig heads (of course wearing sunglasses) and the big joke is to stick a smoke in their mouths too.

Edited March 17, 2004 by paul mitchell (log)

[Jeffy Boy]

This list is complete B.S.!

Granville Island Market in Vancouver is way better than St. Lawrence Market in Toronto!!

[KarenS]

I also like the Berkeley Bowl and the Marin County Farmers market.

[loper]

Gotta love that my old home town Ann Arbor, with a population of barely over 100,000, gets on the list with Zingerman's.

For those who can't make it to A squared:

Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Any list that doesn't include the Reading Terminal or the Italian Markets in Philadelphia is incomplete. 

Come west, young girl, come west!

[ExtraMSG]

San Francisco

FERRY PLAZA FARMERS MARKET

With its outstanding variety of organic fruits and vegetables, the country's best farmers' market (now expanded and relocated to an 1899 warehouse) could be a lesson in sustainable agriculture. Everyone has a favorite product: juicy Frog Hollow Farm peaches, June Taylor conserves (in flavors like rhubarb, greengage plum and blueberry), Recchiuti Confections' rose geranium chocolates and Acme Bakery's olive-packed bread (Market St. at the Embarcadero).

DON'T MISS: The extraordinary shucked-to-order oysters at the Hog Island Oyster Co. (415-391-7117).

I guess they had to choose something, but I think there are several Farmer's Markets that could be competitive with this one, including ours here in Portland or Pike's Place in Seattle. Maybe not quite the size, but in character...

Mexico City

MERCADO DE LA MERCED

Dazzlingly colorful, La Merced occupies four whole blocks and brings together food from all over Mexico. Dozens of zany piñatas dangle above the stalls as shoppers jostle past stacks of chiles, nopales (cactus paddles), blocks of queso blanco (white cheese), rainbow-colored blankets and sweet-smelling guavas (Cerrada del Rosario at Calle General Anaya).

DON'T MISS: The fragrant Mexican vanilla.

Not only 4 blocks, but several airplane hangars. The produce takes up nearly an entire hangar itself. Huge, huge building. Then there's meats and dairy!

Here's a crappy picture from the inside, but you can see the roof and imagine the magnitude.

Berkeley Bowl and Central Market certainly could make the list. I like Berkeley Bowl better than any Farmer's Market I've been to.

Edited March 17, 2004 by ExtraMSG (log)

[SethG]

New York gets no mention..... and deserves none, at least at the retail level.

[KatieLoeb]

Any list that doesn't include the Reading Terminal or the Italian Markets in Philadelphia is incomplete. 

Come west, young girl, come west!

Margaret:

I would, but by my calculations I could sell my three bedroom house in a great neighborhood in Philly and just barely be able to afford to share a refrigerator carton with another homeless guy under the Golden Gate Bridge.

It's all a tradeoff.

[herbacidal]

I gotta disagree with Katie here.

I think there's many markets overseas that put RTM and Italian Market to shame.

I personally believe they would put any US market to shame, but I haven't been to enough US markets to make that claim yet.

[ExtraMSG]

I would, but by my calculations I could sell my three bedroom house in a great neighborhood in Philly and just barely be able to afford to share a refrigerator carton with another homeless guy under the Golden Gate Bridge.

It's all a tradeoff.

You could always live an hour away in Sacramento for not too much more and get to see the Governator. Or join us in Portland for a lower cost of living.

http://www.portlandfarmersmarket.org/

http://www.beavertonfarmersmarket.com/

[bleudauvergne]

I don't think it's really possible to formulate a list of only 25 markets and say they're the best in the world. There are so many great ones.

Here's links to photos I recently took at two of the markets in the town where I live, Lyon France.

Les Halles

and

Quai St. Antoine

-Lucy

[Jonathan Day]

I hate to bring back the old eGullet term "for tourists", but that's what the "top 25" list suggests to me. What about Borough Market, in London? Les Halles, in Lyon? Rungis, in Paris? the Marché Forville in Cannes, which leaves the Cours Saleya far behind? Ventimiglia? Where are they on this list?

[John Whiting]

Jonathan, precisely correct. These magazine articles are invariably written for tourists, not for the people who actually shop at such markets, week by week. The authors inevitably pick those markets that are the most picturesque; whether they are overrated or overpriced is irrelevant.

Borough Market is indeed remarkable, and I shop there for certain items every week, including a stall on the edge that is one of the few places in London to sell batavia lettuce. But everyday vegetables? Only for the rich or the extravagent. My wife does our vegetable shopping in the Chapel Street Market, Islington, for a half to a third of the price. And there's the Berwick Street market, with its "tray for a pound" bargains. And of course there are the ethnic markets on the far-flung edges of London, places I've never heard of, where the ethnic communities that still cook refuse to pay ridiculous prices for the privilege.

[Adam Balic]

- Without being to parochial, definately the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne. Greatest market in a city of markets.

- The Rialto fish Market in Venice. Yes, tourists, but also slithering tables of octopus, people walking about with cones of paper that rustle with jumping shrimp and baskets of tiny fish, often sole, that just screen to be deep fried.

- The smaller of the both markets in Florence, I prefer the smaller of the two, but the larger has a hot tripe stall:wub:.

- The food souks in the Fez's medina, walk into the covered streets, get squeezed by donkeys and you are in transported back 500 years. Green quinces, dates, gourds, olives, lemons, small boys selling sweetmeats and more donkeys.

- Main market in Valencia - great fruit and seafood, especially cuttlefish.

- The small market in Lyon on he river bank (is early, name escapes me). Small, but great produce and location.

I love markets.

[Brad Ballinger]

How did Jungle Jim's not make this list?

[alithea]

Finally, a mention of KaDeWe! It is, like some other markets mentioned here, generally for tourists and for hunting down the occasional rare ingredient. But if you need Velveeta, a 7-lb lobster, or a choice of 1,000 sausages, you know where to go. Such a good time.

[JennotJenn]

Jonathan, precisely correct. These magazine articles are invariably written for tourists, not for the people who actually shop at such markets, week by week. The authors inevitably pick those markets that are the most picturesque; whether they are overrated or overpriced is irrelevant.

Borough Market is indeed remarkable, and I shop there for certain items every week, including a stall on the edge that is one of the few places in London to sell batavia lettuce. But everyday vegetables? Only for the rich or the extravagent. My wife does our vegetable shopping in the Chapel Street Market, Islington, for a half to a third of the price. And there's the Berwick Street market, with its "tray for a pound" bargains. And of course there are the ethnic markets on the far-flung edges of London, places I've never heard of, where the ethnic communities that still cook refuse to pay ridiculous prices for the privilege.

I wouldn't include the English Market in the picturesque category

Tourist category, maybe

Student living abroad category, certainly

(its nickname was "The American Market")

I can only imagine they included it for the unimaginable quantity of meat, meat parts, meat by-products, etc. The quality/variety of the produce was not so great.

I used to go there to get pesto, though. There was a stall that sold some of the better pesto I've ever eaten. I was a vegetarian at the time and it took quite a lot for me to be able to walk into that meat stinking market, even if it was to get really tasty pesto.

I agree that there are far better markets elsewhere (thinking about just about every market I ran into in various French cities).

[Pan]

How did Jungle Jim's not make this list?

What's that? (Or where?)

[John Whiting]

Finally, a mention of KaDeWe! It is, like some other markets mentioned here, generally for tourists and for hunting down the occasional rare ingredient. But if you need Velveeta, a 7-lb lobster, or a choice of 1,000 sausages, you know where to go. Such a good time.

My first visit to the KDW Feinschmecker-Etage, it was unequivocally given over to luxury; five years later there were endless shelves of American packaged food. My last visit to Berlin, I didn't bother to return.

[alithea]

My first visit to the KDW Feinschmecker-Etage, it was unequivocally given over to luxury; five years later there were endless shelves of American packaged food. My last visit to Berlin, I didn't bother to return.

What is unique about KaDeWe is that it shoots for a wide variety of everything under the sun, rather than "the best" of everything. It's not a boutique. There are a lot of products people probably don't want, like Newman's Own Microwave Popcorn and the aforementioned Velveeta. But remembering that KaDeWe stands for "department store of the west" and that the city was divided for a long time, The rare availability of American convenience foods was probably very meaningful. A few miles away, they couldn't even get bananas...

[Pan]

Not that bananas are truly an American (as in U.S.) food (outside of some banana trees in Puerto Rico, Florida, et al.).