If you’ve got hosts and home cooks, a grandpa with a sweet tooth, or perpetually ravenous college students in your life, Aquidneck Island is brimming with foodie gifts for every palate. Thanks to a popping restaurant scene that’s emerged in recent years, culinary retail entrepreneurs have followed suit.
In Newport, you can find everything from sublime, locally crafted chocolates and toffee to freshly roasted coffee, vegan crackers, olive oil, sublime spiced nuts, international teas, and more, along with all the accoutrements you need for cooking and serving.
If you’re not popping into Mozz Newport at Bellevue Gardens for one of those beautiful, milky spheres of house-made mozzarella cheese, you’re missing out. But you can also hit the welcoming shop for its curated selection of cool Italian gift options. Last year, there were Bosca cheese tools, Ravenscroft wine glasses, pizza wheels, fondue sets, oils, vinegars, unique pasta shapes, serving/cutting boards, and more.
For more specialty food products like imported olive oils, spices, cheeses, and small production wines, head to Newport Wine Cellar and Gourmet on Merton Street. Owner and winemaker Maria Chiancola and her warm and helpful staff make a stop in this funky spot a must.
The display case at the Newport Sweet Shoppe is a sweet-lover’s chimera, the charming shop wafting with the aromas of chocolate and butter. Intricately decorated, freshly baked holiday cookies, chocolates, and confections are made on premises year-round, but at holiday time it’s absolutely perfect; they could drop this shop right into a Christmas movie. Its cases are stocked and stacked with chocolate trees, Santas and soldiers, peppermint bark, fudge, and chocolate-covered pretzels. I love the individually wrapped cookies, which make for great stocking stuffers or place setting décor.
Want to buy items that only chefs know about? Utility in Middletown is your jam. From cookbooks to corkscrews, dishes, knives, and specialty food items including tubs of Maldon salt, chili crisp, aperitifs, tinned fish, olive oil, and spices, this sleek shop is curated for true lovers of cooking and hosting.
For a one-stop shop, you can’t go wrong with the beautiful gifts sold at the Newport Mansions Store on Bannister’s Wharf. Part of the Preservation Society of Newport County and its impeccable stewardship of a collection of the island’s most historically significant gilded mansions, the shop on Bannister’s differs from the stores found at the end of the mansion tours. While proudly sharing some signature museum items, Bannister’s leans more toward high-end gift shop, with apparel, kids’ toys, home goods, and a strong emphasis on beautiful serve ware, fun barware, cocktail napkins, cheese knives, platters and lobster pots, and gourmet food items.
Here, you can dive into an impressive collection of cocktail guides, cookbooks, and tomes on entertaining. The store sells an assortment of Stonewall Kitchen products, including blueberry scone and lemon poundcake mixes, jams and jellies, caramel coffee and peppermint chocolate sauces. The Holiday Spiced Cranberry Sauce is a revelation. There’s salad dressing, marinades, Newport-made spices and dry rubs, Newport Sea Salt, and Newport Chowder Co.’s herby spice packet.
For tea drinkers, there are Harney & Sons teas along with various strains of high-quality examples produced exclusively for the stores with artwork representing the mansions and old-time Newport.
Got cocktail drinkers? The store has a full spinner of cocktail mixes for whipping up more than a dozen old-time sippers and classics-with-a-twist. Just add alcohol. Teetotalers are not forgotten; there are a handful of non-alcoholic wines, espresso martini, Old Fashioned, and Bloody Mary mixes and even a holiday style “Glogg.”
Chocoholics will love the Sea Coast Sweets chocolates, which come in both bars like milk chocolate caramel sea salt and dark chocolate almond, and filled patties (peppermint, peanut butter, coconut, and s’more). For the sentimentalists, there are also old-timey, filled peppermint candies and mixed bags of hard candy in holiday shapes.
Check back here in the coming weeks for more ideas on sourcing nibbles and pre-made dishes for your holiday table at our small foodie retail shops.
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