SOS Chefs

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Give a funky antiques shop a French-Moroccan flair and an industrial concrete floor that can be hosed down nightly, and you've got Trufette, the retail arm of Atef Boulaabi's wholesale business. Check out apothecary-style drawers full of flavored salts, shelves stocked with cans of escargot, neat displays of argan oil and almond syrup, shelled Iranian pistachios, and boxes of vanilla beans, extracts, pastes and powders lining the rafters. Black truffles and even more precious saffron and fennel pollen are worth the splurge. So is not-so-local produce like jumbo white asparagus from France, which are a harbinger of spring, and mushrooms come from all over. Hen-of-the-woods, according to manager Adam Berkowitz, are best from Japan: “There’s less stem, more flower.” S.O.S. delivers to a network of chefs, who might call just before dinner service. Momofuku's David Chang is a fan. "We get our mushrooms there," says Prune's Gabrielle Hamilton, who’s currently using Trufette's yellowfoots and honshimeji. "Atef is an incredibly stylish little lady. She’ll throw open the walk-in door, make you smell things, and give you chocolate on the way out." — Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld