The Meadow

The Meadow
523 Hudson St, btwn West 10th/Charles Sts
212-645-4633

Should you be looking for flowers and chocolates (and a dash of…salt?) to indulge yourself, delight a friend or romance that special someone, The Meadow just might prove to be your one stop shop. Owners Jennifer Turner Bitterman and Mark Bitterman opened their charming doors in New York in the fall of 2010, having first founded their Oregon location in 2006.

With a whiff of the unexpected in the air, The Meadow is an elegant boutique designed with the heart and senses in mind. Freshly cut flowers may be plucked out of antique vases and tin buckets, or special arrangements may be ordered as they are also full-service florists—and they deliver. Over 300 kinds of dark, milk and flavored chocolates are on hand, including truffles and sipping chocolates. There are also scads of gourmet items in stock to assist in stocking your bar and kitchen as well. Unfortunately due to New York liquor laws, the well-curated selection of wines and vermouths from Oregon and Europe only fill the shelves of the Portland branch, but they still offer a host of bitters to add to your Manhattan cocktails right here in Manhattan.

So how does that niggling mention of salt figure into all of this? The Bitterman’s take their various artisanal salts very seriously. They have amassed a wild collection of over 100 sea salts and quarried salts and apart from sprinkling it on some of their chocolates, their careful selection is aimed to effectively enhance just about any dish, thereby delighting guests at any table. Mark Bitterman took his fascination with salt to create Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral with Recipes, which also happens to be a brilliant “field guide”, chronicling the history of the ancient ingredient accompanied by 50 recipes.

Clearly The Meadow is not to be taken with a grain of salt.

First published for Next magazine.