{"id":901579,"date":"2026-06-29T20:49:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/901579\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T20:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:49:12","slug":"kitchen-arts-letters-serves-new-york-food-stories-in-lower-manhattan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/901579\/","title":{"rendered":"Kitchen Arts & Letters Serves New York Food Stories in Lower Manhattan"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Food Stories by Kitchen Arts & Letters\u00a0is part of the Downtown Alliance\u2019s RE:Store program, which is bringing six pop-ups to Lower Manhattan for the summer. Learn more about the program\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If New York is a melting pot of cultures, then Kitchen Arts & Letters<\/a> is the culinary bookstore for New Yorkers. And this summer, Lower Manhattanites will be able to experience it firsthand, via its RE:Store pop-up<\/a> at 111 Broadway.<\/p>\n

According to Matt Sartwell, managing partner, the longtime Upper East Side bookseller invites a sense of discovery that extends beyond an impressive collection of recipes. \u201cThis is a place where stories and legends and cultural myths and traditions are all valued and found,\u201d Sartwell said.<\/p>\n

Kitchen Arts & Letters opened its doors on Lexington Avenue in 1983 and has sold cookbooks, as well as books about food history and culture, ever since. Whereas the OG location has upwards of 11,000 titles in stock, the \u201cNew York Food Stories by Kitchen Arts & Letters\u201d summer pop-up a will have a much smaller, carefully curated selection focused on New York\u2013centric treasures. Think histories of local institutions like Zabar\u2019s and Russ & Daughters and tomes that dive deep into the communities that are important to the local food scene, including Jewish, Chinese, Indian and Caribbean cultures. \u201cNew York has a lot of interest in food,\u201d Sartwell said. \u201cPeople here take it very seriously.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The original location\u2019s success (as the oldest food and drink bookstore in the country, no less) can partly be attributed to its reputation for personalized service in tracking down rare, out of print and otherwise hard to source books for its customers \u2014 a lost art since the proliferation of online mega-booksellers.<\/p>\n

One of the most exciting parts about setting up shop this summer in a new neighborhood, according to Sartwell, is getting to know a different demographic. \u201cI really want to see just what it is that people come in hoping to find,\u201d Sartwell said. \u201cI think we\u2019re gonna have to be pretty nimble about what we have [in the shop].\u201d For example, Sartwell expects to get some fans visiting for a World Cup match seeking books on their team\u2019s cuisines, which the shop might not have on hand right away. \u201cFortunately we have the inventory uptown that we can pull from if we have to make a sudden or surprising shift in what we\u2019re stocking downtown,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Even though the shop works with some of the city\u2019s most famous chefs, Sartwell says the team also caters to casual home cooks, so the downtown store will be more tailored to everyday purposes. \u201cMaybe they want to feed their family dinner, or somebody just went vegetarian and they need help feeding themselves in a way that feels interesting,\u201d he said. No matter your cooking proficiency, Sartwell says the pop-up will be a welcoming place for you. \u201cWe really love to talk to people about these books and the food in them,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reading and talking about cooking techniques is great, but it all comes down to practice. Sartwell\u2019s advice for someone who wants to become a better chef? Don\u2019t be afraid to make mistakes. That said, if you want your meals to be less like \u201cKitchen Nightmares\u201d and more like \u201cThe Joy of Cooking,\u201d it\u2019s worth stopping by the pop-up\u2019s weekly events with authors, chefs and food historians throughout the summer. Consider this your sign to get cooking!<\/p>\n

New York Food Stories by Kitchen Arts & Letters is open at 111 Broadway on Tuesdays through Saturdays, 12 p.m.\u20138 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Food Stories by Kitchen Arts & Letters\u00a0is part of the Downtown Alliance\u2019s RE:Store program, which is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":901580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,15148,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-901579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-restore","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116835370419512965","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}