You won’t find Twizzlers or Kellogg’s Corn Flakes or any other brand you’ve likely heard of at Kitch n’ Kaffe (800 N Bedford Rd, Bedford Hills 914-218-8860). The recently opened emporium for hard-to-find kitchen housewares, specialty food items, and ingredients is owner John Porter’s second such store (the 10-year-old original location is on 985 Route 6 in Mahopac). There are more than 10,000 products on the shelves, almost all having been requested by home cooks, restaurateurs, and chefs. Alex Rubeo of Armonk Lobster House and Jonathan Pratt of Peter Pratt’s Inn are frequent shoppers. Among the aisle categories: spices and extracts, specialty teas, nostalgic candy and UK chocolates, cutlery, barware, and electric appliances.
“We source most any kitchen tool and specialty food ingredient or product,” says Porter, who was in sales and marketing in the specialty-foods and housewares business before he opened Kitch n’ Kaffe. “Products on our shelves are there because someone has asked for them.”
Some of the more unusual items proffered include a wood gnocchi board ($7.49); a four-inch, mother-of-pearl caviar spoon ($9.99); antique glass stovetop Pyrex percolators ($49.99–$69.99); vegan Orgran Chocolate Cake Mix ($5.69); a cast-iron, eight-wedge cornbread skillet ($32.99); Spanish saffron ($7.99 for 3.5 ounces); an eight-inch marble mortar and pestle ($51.99); Flake Bars ($1.99), a candy popular in England and Ireland; and obscure autographed cookbooks (e.g., WWE commentator Jim Ross’ J.R.’s Cookbook, $26).
The store also has a fresh-roast coffee bar and a next-day knife-sharpening service.
Onion goggles, honey pot and dipper, and a melon scoop; not kitchen essentials but fun to have nonetheless.
