About Us

Until 2007, our only customers were about 400 of the top restaurant chefs in the country (traditionally, we’re a boutique high-end restaurant distributor). Now, home chefs like you can buy the finest and freshest foods just like the pro chefs who are driving food trends. Our goal is to supply you with the ingredients to make memorable dining experiences … in your home.

We’re a family business…the 5th generation to be exact. Things have certainly changed since 1895, but our desire to provide the finest and freshest foods to our customers hasn’t. Frank, Justin , Keith and Garrett Marx and their small staff work with the foragers, farmers, fishermen and artisans to supply you with the best. We welcome you into our family.

We are guided by the following principles:

Be Delicious. Supplying you with the finest and the freshest is our top priority.

Foresee Food Trends. There are so many thousands of food products out there. We’ll offer what’s hot now. But it is more important to us to find the exciting new food products of tomorrow. Ironically, this often means rediscovering the heirloom and heritage products of yesterday. It helps that we have great relationships with some of the most innovative chefs and producers in the world.

Sell the Star of the Meal. We will never sell ketchup. We won’t sell salt either, unless it is flor de sal (or fleur de sel if you are French). What you can buy from us is either the center of the plate, the conversation piece of the meal, or that hidden ingredient that takes a dish’s flavor profile to a new level of complexity.

Talk to Customers. Listen too. We are not your typical Internet company. When you call us during business hours, we’ll pick up the phone, we’ll take special requests, we’ll answer your questions, and if we don’t know the answer, we’ll tell you so and then go find the answer for you. Go ahead…call or email us. Please.

Be Authentic & Transparent. Did you know that the milk in the picture on most cereal boxes is actually Elmers glue? We think that’s disgusting. We took all the photos on our site…and, then, we ate the food. Or, rather, we savored it with a glass or two of wine (yes, our office is really fun to work in…especially on photo days!). But authentic photography is only part of it.

Authenticity guides our decisions about what products to sell, how to write about them, how we talk to you when you call with questions, and just about everything else. We also try as hard as possible to be transparent. We’ll give you as much information as possible about our foods so that you can make educated food purchasing decisions depending on your health goals and food politics.

Connect You to the Source. It’s probably hard to believe since you’ve heard “we eliminate the middleman” so many times. The truth is that most of your food travels along a very long supply chain as it zigzags the country or world, travels on and off many trucks, and in and out many warehouses. Not only does that increase costs, but it diminishes quality as the food bounces along and experiences one temperature change after the next.

We ship via Fedex and connect you directly to wild mushroom foragers in the Pacific NorthWest, artisanal pasta makers in the NorthEast and game bird farms in the SouthEast, to name a few. If you order five items, you are likely to receive five separate FedEx boxes, each having arrived from a different place. We eliminate the middleman (um…except us in the case of our imported meat) in order to supply you with the finest and the freshest.

Yes, we are aware that buying food like the pros involves buying in bulk. But, is it really a big deal to buy 10 individually vacuum sealed grass-fed strip steaks rather than four, especially if they are the best you have ever tasted, you can easily freeze them, and you can save some money? And, if you are squeamish about buying 5 lbs. of wild mushrooms, we tell you the pros’ tricks to keep all of our products in pristine condition. Please call us if you are concerned about our order minimums or other shipping info.