Edible Guide: Hidden Gems
Every now and then you stumble across one: a hidden gem of a store that contains an assortment of interesting merchandise you’ve never seen. Whether it’s Italian pasta, pod peppers from Latin America or Icelandic sheepskin, the products that speak to each of us are different and unique. What we share is the quest to find these retail gems and use their merchandise to enrich our cuisine and add interest and comfort to our lives. We are fortunate to have many such gems on the Island: retailers who are not always well known, but are well worth seeking out for their fabulous array of products. So, we’ve compiled a list of these hidden gems and have also featured three in more detail below. Happy shopping!
North Central Island
1. Amy’s Asian Foods and Cafe
2. Clever Crow Farm
3. Runges Deli
4. Goods Grocery
5. Weinberg's Good Food
Central Island
6. Old Country Market
7. Sabzi Mandi Supermarket
8. Alpha African-Caribbean Food Store
9. MB Mart
10. McLean’s
11. Man Lee Nanaimo
Pacific Rim
12. Gaia Grocery
13. Picnic Charcuterie
Gulf Islands
14. Cortes Natural Food Co-op
15. Wishbone
16. Page’s Resort
17. Daystar Market
18. Salt Spring Island Cheese Company
Saanich & Sooke
19. Deep Cove Market
20. Fickle Fig
21. Snowdon House
Victoria
22. Indian Grocery
23. The Market Garden
24. Rock Bay Market
25. Mexican House of Spice
26. Wooden Shoe Deli
27. Damascus Market
28. Aubergine Foods
29. Charellis
29. Yumbrosia
Market Garden
Ryan Townsend was a craftsman designer before he opened The Market Garden on 810 Catherine Street in Victoria four years ago, and you can see his decorative talents in the store’s design. Unlike any other store in the city, his store features scagliola columns, Jacobean barrel vault ceilings, extensive marble accents in the wall tiles and upcycled display tables made from furniture and fir flooring. We love The Market Garden for its large selection of high-quality, often-organic specialty food products and its all-organic produce. On the shelves, you’ll find Marella pasta crafted with 100% organic Italian wheat, craft chocolate from all over the world and bulk spices and soap products to refill your own containers.
Shoppers love this store because it offers an experience and an ambience. Visit on the weekend and you’ll find a pianist tinkling the ivories—a live performance that’s just one part of the in-store experience. That piano takes up valuable retail space, but it’s worth it, says Townsend. “It’s something people don’t expect in a grocery store, and that’s part of what I’m trying to do: to bring items into the store that people have never seen before.”
After COVID-19 restrictions ease, he plans to add cooking demonstrations and hand out food samples so customers can tantalize their taste buds and find out how to use different ingredients. Watch for the new line of pestos and sundried tomatoes arriving soon from Italy, and prepare to be in browser’s heaven in these 3,000 square feet.
Weinberg’s Good Food
Weinberg’s Good Food in Fanny Bay opened a decade ago, not long after Leah Weinberg moved from the Lower Mainland to the Island with her family. “We started out selling produce and coffee, but today we’ve become a specialty food store selling produce, textiles and imported food,” she says.
In just under 1,000 square feet, she packs a wide assortment of products that include Swedish wool blankets, Turkish textiles, high-end charcuterie, men’s apothecary grooming products, Icelandic sheepskins, salt-water sandals and French pocket knives. Eclectic? Most definitely.
Located behind the PetroCanada station at the ferry terminal to Denman Island, Weinberg’s
Good Food is hard to see unless you know it’s there—which makes stumbling across this hidden gem a particularly gratifying experience.
“Because of our location, we saw so many tourists coming through,” she reflects. Previously a buyer in the film industry in Vancouver, she admits she loves to “shop for stuff” and had lots of connections with Vancouver’s Main Street merchants before she moved to the Island. “I think of this store as a bit of an installation art project: it’s a place where I can showcase the things I like, and luckily other people seem to like those things too!”
Look for the second location of Weinberg’s in Qualicum Beach, and be sure to order a coffee as you’re wandering the aisles. Says Weinberg, “You can expect some of the best pulls of espresso on the Island, made from the beans of one of our favorite local roasters, Creekmore’s Coffee in Coombs.”
Mexican House of Spice
When Maritza Sanchez came to Victoria, she quickly realized there was no place that sold the spices, products and ingredients from Latin America that she and others in her community missed and craved. So she addressed the gap directly and opened the Mexican House of Spice ten years ago.
The small grocery store sells spices from Latin America, Africa and Jamaica, as well as tamales, puposas, chao mein noodles, soup mixes, chips, caramel corn, canned and frozen vegetables, 29 varieties of dried pod peppers, cheese, sausage and more. If you’re cooking any cuisine with Latin or South American influence, you’ll want to explore this house full of spice.
“Our frozen vegetables come from Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico and El Salvador, we make our salsa in-house and every weekend we sell tamales and specialty sweet breads,” Sanchez says. Need tamaleras for making your own tamales? Sanchez has that, too.
The 3,500-square-foot store not far from Victoria’s City Hall is a treasure chest of canned, frozen, refrigerated and packaged foods from all over the world, as well as those hard-to-find spices that add zing to your cuisine. Says Sanchez, “Before we opened there was nothing available in Victoria for our culture, our Latin American shoppers, who constitute a growing part of the community. We wanted to open a store for them.”
