25 Historic or futuristic, pristine or chaotic, rural or urban, the following markets are a food lover's fantasy - as much for the spectacle of it as for the shopping. Ask our Culinary Specialists to arrange for your travel to these exciting food markets of the world! Ann Arbor, Michigan
Barcelona Berlin
Birmingham, U.K. Cairo San Francisco Depending on the time of year, there are anywhere between 60 and 100 stalls. Each one is usually operated by its owners or someone who works for them. The stallholders are knowledgeable and enthusiastic and see the market as much as an opportunity to educate as to sell. To that end, there are usually samples available so that even if you can’t buy baskets of vegetables because you’re a tourist and you don’t have anywhere to cook them, you can still try some of the best San Francisco has to offer. Ann Arbor, Michigan One of the most popular delis in Ann Arbor, this corner deli serves Jewish traditional foods, gourmet cheeses, baked pastries, and a variety of breads, tea, coffee, and chocolates. They are open daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Mexico City La Merced is considered to be one of the most traditional markets in Mexico City, as its foundation goes back quite a ways. Since then, it has become a center for the gathering of all types of goods. These include vegetables, clothing, shoes, meat produce, livestock, fish, seafood and imported articles. Prices are very reasonable, and it can get rather crowded at times! It is a good place to buy ingredients for daily meals, as well as for browsing. You might be able to find parking spaces around the market, but it is advisable to go by metro. Castries, St. Lucia Discover St. Lucia's colorful, friendly nature while visiting the 100-year-old Saturday Market in the capital of Castries. Here you'll find bountiful bananas, today's catch, local spices such as mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, cocoa and hot pepper sauces which make great gifts and souvenirs. In the adjacent Craft Market are baskets, brooms and other straw goods, wood carvings, pottery and local artists wares at good prices. There is also a small market on the waterfront in Soufriére where some handicrafts and spices are sold. Toronto This massive 19th century brick building is home to the city's largest market. Open every day except Sunday and Monday, St. Lawrence Market is home to several dozen meat and deli stands, produce shops and fish stands - all offering an abundance of everyday and gourmet foods. Cheese and dairy foods, dry goods and a small selection of organic health foods are also available on both levels of the market. Paddington Pump, a small pub at the front of the market, serves drinks and a selection of pub grub, while above, the Market Gallery overlooks the main level. On Saturdays, smaller farmers market opens in the north market building directly across from the Market's main doors on Front Street. Here shoppers can find fresh cut flowers and fruits and vegetables, including local and hothouse produce. Birmingham, U.K. Selfridges Food Hall, with its futuristic design and thrilling contents, is a true 21st century shopping mecca. "Extreme sourcing" assures you'll find delicacies like Japanese Wagyu beef, the finest Scottish kippers, truffled foie gras, artisanal honeys, and hand-crafted Alpine cheeses. Refuel with a Modern-British lunch at the sleek Gallery restaurant. Cork, Ireland The English Market is one of Cork's greatest assets, with an array of butchers selling traditional Cork meats, fruit and veggie shops selling at discount prices, fishmongers, Italian and French cheese stalls, fresh bread stands and more. Early in the morning, chefs from various restaurants and cafes drop in to buy their supplies. During the day, many residents of the city pass through to do their own shopping. It is also popular with visitors as it is a unique shopping experience that really should not to be missed. Paris The name is short for BoulangEpicier (a combination of bakery and grocery store). Alain Ducasse's tiny new shop in the 8th arrondissemont showcases the chef's favorite staples; late-harvest vin jaune vinegar, sea-salt caramels and miraculous breads from uberbaker and co-owner Eric Kayser. Barcelona The Boqueria market in Barcelona is one of the oldest and best in Europe. Half train station, half warehouse, it's a huge complex of seemingly endless shops and stalls. With bakeries, pastry shops, cured jamon serrano, at least 20 kinds of olives, and just about every cheese made in Europe, the Boqueria offers the makings for a great picnic lunch and even better local color. Although frequented by tourists - sitting right off Barcelona's main drag Las Ramblas - it's still mainly frequented by locals buying and selling various foods and just going about their daily business. As a tourist, you're probably in their way, but go anyway and observe what goes on where most of the food that the city eats is bought and sold. Milan Peck in Milan is without a doubt one of the world’s greatest delicatessens, and the restaurant at Peck stands for the highest level of culinary artistry. Since the end of 2000 it has also become a synonym for a small culinary revolution. This was the year young Carlo Cracco was named the restaurant’s chef de cuisine and since then he has been shaking Milan’s conservative diners out of their lethargy with his tremendously daring definition of modern Italian cuisine – and sending them into raptures at the same time. With dishes like pig’s snout with prawns and green tomatoes, or caviar with walnut-liqueur sorbet, Cracco manages an elegant balance between the avant-garde and the traditional, the daring and the down-to-earth and between contrast and harmony that is unrivalled by any other Italian chef on the scene today. His résumé is also impressive: he got his start in 1985 at Gualtiero Marchesi in Milan, then apprenticed with Alain Ducasse in Monte Carlo and Alain Senderens in Paris. Modena, Italy There are larger markets in Italy, but this is the most picture-postcard-perfect. You'll find gorgeous peaches and figs, artful displays of fresh egg pasta and - this being Modena - the world's best aged balsamic vinegars. Berlin With 34,000 kinds of global food products - 1,200 wursts and smoked meats; 1,3000 types of cheeses; 400 types of bread; 2,400 wines - the vast food hall in Berlin's glitziest department store awes with sheer statistics and variety, like ostrich eggs and exotic fruit you've never seen before. Moscow A recent $3 million makeover has returned this landmark 1901 emporium to its original czarist splendor, with crystal chandeliers and Art Nouveau stained glass. There are dozens of different caviars, imported Cognacs and prepared delicacies like Siberian meat dumpling and Georgian cheese pies. Helsinki Bright piles of cloudberries and lingonberries, iridescent-green peas and baskets of potatoes that seem far too pretty to eat line this harborside market, in the summer, competing scents include those of innumerable lilacs, roasted meat pies and cinnamon buns (east end of Esplanadi). Nice, France A favorite meeting place for locals, the city's best-known pedestrian district is attractively laid out, filled with colorful stalls and lined with pleasant cafe terraces and restaurants. Every day is market day here, from the flower market and fruit and vegetable market (Tuesday to Sunday) to the antiques fair (Mondays) and the arts and crafts market on summer evenings. No matter what time of day it is, there's always something going on. Yet it's this fruit & vegetable market that is one of the most remarkable and popular events for locals and visitors alike. Manaus, Brazil Imagine an 1882 wrought-iron replica of Paris's vanished Les Halles market in an eco-tourist Amazonian town. Vendors scale giant fish and hawk tropical fruit and potions for use in macumba, an Afro-Brazilian religion. Santiago, Chile Chile's 2,600-mile Pacific coastline yields spectacular seafood, much of which is on display at the wrought-iron Mercado. Regulars bargain for sparkling sea bass, abalone, picorocos (giant barnacles), sea urchin and huge conger eels that hang from the ceiling. Pisac, Peru The Pisac Sunday Market on the Main Square turns this village in the Andean highlands into possibly the world's most vibrant indigenous market. Do as the villagers do and quaff chicha (Andean corn beer) while you haggle for brightly-colored alpaca wool, endless varieties of corn, beans, potatoes, and chilies. Istanbul Set in a building fashioned after 19th-century Parisian arcades, this market features open sacks of spices and henna, briny grape leaves and tubs of silvery Black Sea mackerel. Old Delhi, India One of the main markets of Delhi, Chandni Chowk was once lined with beautiful fountains. But today the place is very crowded and congested. Chandni Chowk is located opposite the Red Fort. The Area has got the Digamber Jain Temple which houses the Birds hospital. On one end of Chandni Chowk is the Fatehpuri Mosque which was erected by the wives of Shah Jahan. Opposite the old police station or the Kotwali is the Sunheri Masjid from where Nadir Shah ordered his troops to plunder and massacre Delhi. Cairo How could a market in Egypt be responsible for the founding of the United States? Khan el-Khalili, once known as the Turkish bazaar during the Ottoman period, is now usually just called the 'Khan', and the names of it and the Muski market are often used interchangeably to mean either. Named for the great Caravansary, the market was built in 1382 by the Emir Djaharks el-Khalili in the heart of the Fatimid City. Together with the al-Muski market to the west, they comprise one of Cairo's most important shopping areas. But more than that, they represent the market tradition which established Cairo as a major center of trade, and at the Khan, one will still find foreign merchants. Perhaps, this very market was involved in the spice monopoly controlled by the Mamluks, which encouraged the Europeans to search for new routes to the East and led Columbus, indirectly, to discover the Americas. During its early period, the market was also a center for subversive groups, often subject to raids before the Sultan Ghawri rebuilt much of the area in the early 16th century. Regardless, it was trade which caused Cairo's early wealth, even from the time of the Babylon fort which was often a settlement of traders. This market is situated at one corner of a triangle of markets that go south to Bab Zuwayla and west to Azbakiyyah. The Khan is bordered on the south by al-Azhar Street and on the west by the Muski Market. One of the old original gates guards the entrance to the original courtyard which lies midway down Sikkit al-Badistan (street). There are any number of canvas covered streets such as the one pictured. Melbourne At the northern, top end of the city (in Victoria Street, between Queen and Peel Sts.) is Melbourne's famous Queen Victoria Market, a carry-over from Victorian times. This is a working market with meat, fish, bakery and delicatessen sections as well as scores of fruit and vegetable vendors' stalls and general merchandise. There are more than 1,000 stalls, most of them set up outdoors under tin roofs with iron gables. The market has a separate meat hall and a delicatessen area renowned for Greek, Italian and Polish food. On Sundays there is a wine market. Cafes and restaurants pop up around the market. The market is open Tuesday and Thursday from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m., on Friday from 6 a.m. until 6 p. m., on Saturdays from 6 a.m. until 3 p.m.. On Sundays, the food stalls shut and more general merchandise and bric-a-brac stalls pop up in their place. Singapore Named after the water carts that used to deliver water, the Kreta Ayer Wet Market is a riot of Asian greens, curry blends, live snakes, turtles, and black-skinned chickens that matrons will buy for their family's dinner. Stop by the huge food center on the floor above the market for a breakfast of noodle soup or Hainanese chicken rice. Kashgar, China The mother of all bazaars takes place on a Sunday, in a huge area to the east of town. Known in Chinese as the Zhongxiya Shichang (Western-Central Asia Market), or, in Uigur, as the Yekshenba Bazaar (Sunday Bazaar), this attracts up to one hundred thousand villagers and nomads, all riding their donkey carts from the surrounding area into the city. For the sheer scale of the occasion, it's the number one sight in Kashgar, if not all Xinjiang. Animals, knives, hats, pots and pans, fresh fruit and vegetables, clothes and boots and every kind of domestic and agricultural appliance - often handmade in wood and tin - are all on sale. The market goes on all day and into the early evening and food and drink are widely available. Tokyo Start your tour of the Tokyo Central Wholesale Market (colloquially "Tsukiji Fish Market") on at 0530 (Monday through Saturday) during the tuna auction in the inner market. Huge frozen fish carcasses are sold by lively auctioneers and their clipboard-toting assistants. Once sold, the fish are marked with the name of the buyer. At some point, the heads get either chopped off with a huge axe or sawed off with a circular saw. Once the whole fish are sold to wholesalers, they go back to their stalls within the market to divide up the carcass into filets to sell to sushi markets. The stalls within the market also sell every other kind of fresh--or live--seafood: You can buy handmade knives in the outer market, or, if you've developed an appetite for raw fish, grab some sushi in one of the many little restaurants. Getting there: Don't go on Sunday when the market is closed. Take a taxi if you want to arrive really early. Otherwise, the Tsukiji station on the Hibiya subway line will get you within a 5-minute walk. Thanks
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