Tomato Casual Answers Reader Question: Where to Buy Heirloom Tomatoes
By Michelle Fabio
Tomato Casual reader Giorgio Nero would like to know:
Where can I buy about 100 cases of heirloom - or similarly tasting, sun-grown - tomatoes during the winter months. I need them in New York City and refuse to buy the available tasteless winter product.
This is an excellent question and a valid concern; no one likes a bland tomato!
To find the answer, we went straight to some of the most reliable sources we could think of—the finest restaurants of New York City.
We found that over 200 restaurants in the Big Apple, including The Four Seasons, get their tomatoes from Sid Wainer & Son® in New Bedford, Massachusetts. President of the company, Dr. Henry B. Wainer informed us that their heirloom season is as follows:
December thru June - greenhouse grown in Florida;
July thru September - California and locally grown;
October and November - greenhouse grown in Ontario, Canada.
This award-winning family-run business has been around since 1914, and according to its website it’s “the most prominent importer and distributor of specialty produce and specialty foods in the U.S.A.”
Some more reliable sources for heirloom information include Chef Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich, owners of the famous Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca in the heart of Greenwich Village in New York City.
According to the Babbo website, the popular, critically-acclaimed restaurant buys many of its heirloom tomatoes locally from Guy Jones of Blooming Hills Farm, located in the Hudson Valley.
For 26 years, this organic family farm has supplied produce to consumers, including at farmers’ markets throughout the area as detailed on the Blooming Hill Farms website.
Babbo also reportedly buys heirloom tomatoes from Tim Stark of Eckerton Hills Farms in Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania, which has been featured in the New York Times; Stark also sells his renowned heirlooms at the Union Square Greenmarket.
While we can’t guarantee the availability or price of heirloom tomatoes from these vendors, we have to believe that the recommendations from New York City’s finest restaurants are not to be taken lightly.
Now we can only hope that they haven’t bought out all the heirlooms.
