Wednesday, January 31, 2024

The Disney World of home goods, Japanese glassware, and fried octopus.

Hello from Frankfurt!

I'm here with John Berweiler, who heads up our Shop, to attend Ambiente, the Disney World of home goods trade shows. The gathering is sprawled across 12 massive connected buildings and many floors with everything from Christmas ornaments to cookware to rugs. On our first of four days, we walked more than 7 miles…inside.

Our team comes here every year to seek out cool, beautiful, useful, Food52-ish products to bring to you in our Shop and to build relationships with makers so we can surprise you with more special goods that are tailored just to Food52.

We're seeing a lot of golden yellow and sage green bowls, glassware, and pepper mills; smart space-saving solutions; and products rooted in nostalgia. Some green, stackable, Nick & Nora glasses coming your way? We'll see!

Here are some Day 1 highlights – and we'll be posting more on our Instagram account @food52:

Some companies treat their booths like theater sets.

Yes, please!

Sleek wood trays from Slovenia.

A smart, minimal kitchen island with an end-grain wood top. Très chic and très expensive, but extremely well designed and much cheaper than building an island.

The adorable award went to this foldable, portable picnic table.

Don't you worry, I was keeping an eye out for beer glasses.

A meat trident for steadying a hunk of meat while carving. Looks like it came straight from a Marvel movie set.

We were super into these delicate Japanese tumblers.

Rechargeable lanterns are getting more and more stylish. These were the most original ones we saw.

Honey servers! (I think.)

A corkscrew made with upcycled wood from old wine casks and an innovative corkscrew design.

A clever bread box with a detachable cutting board.

Capellini with tomatoes.

Beef tartare topped with scrambled eggs and truffles.

Where to eat in Frankfurt

We got our steps in for the month and have had lots of hearty bread and sausages but vegetables have been hard to come by unless you count chopped parsley. If you're here for just a day, try to book a reservation at La Scuderia, an Italian restaurant that's spiffy and warm with a polished wood bar and a softly lit dining room. There are no menus. The owner comes by your table to ask you what you're in the mood for, and offers a few options. We were in the mood for beef tartare topped with scrambled eggs and truffles, fried octopus, capellini with tomatoes, and roasted sea bass.

Send me a lettuce leaf please!

Amanda Hesser

Founder & Executive Chair

P.S. I just showed you some of the great stuff we found. There was also the occasional what were they thinking?

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