Wynwood Fresh Market

Indie bakers, chefs and farmers selling their goods among warehouses and urban sprawl? Take that, NYC!

Cute receptacles for honey or evil goomongers who come to life at night? We'd sleep with one eye open.

By Linda Bladholm

Cooks and chefs head to the Wynwood Fresh Market Tuesday through Friday for locally grown produce, but you don't need to know your way around a kitchen to find plenty to eat here.

James Hayes, an out-of-work caulker, sets up his grill most days and turns out chicken, ribs and vegetables served with homemade barbecue sauce and potato salad, while Stephanie Kondrchek, who moved to South Florida a year ago from Maryland and couldn't make it selling cars, turned her love of baking into a cupcake business. Flavors include carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, peanut butter chocolate bliss, white coconut dream, red velvet and dark chocolate with chocolate butter cream frosting.

Hani Khouri runs Redland Mediterranean Organics with his wife, Mary Lee. They offer prepared spreads, dips, salads, falafel, lean lamb kofta, stuffed grape leaves and chicken rolls. Look for specials like mini lahmejune (lamb-topped Armenian pizza) and muskhan, made from spelt strudel rolled up with a mixture of chicken, onions, pine nuts and tart sumac, baked and sold in slices. The couple lives on a farm in the Redland with a small herd of goats that produce the milk for their organic goat cheese and goat milk ice cream. Flavors to try (ask for a free sample) are avocado, black sapote, raspberry, papaya, mango, pistachio with rosewater and vanilla with lavender. The Khouris also sell paper-thin, yeast-free whole wheat crackers embedded with flax seeds and spices made by German native Stephan Uch. They're perfect for scooping up the wild scallop and watermelon or swordfish and pineapple ceviche Basque-born Juan Carlos Lopaoegui brings from his Ceviche Parlor in Dania Beach.

Bee Land's Wim Forstmann sells honey his beekeeper collects from Loxahatchee to Homestead, plus royal jelly and bee pollen. Fresh mozzarella that Italian Vito Volpe makes at his Mozzarita in Pompano Beach is also for sale at this roadside attraction for foodies.

Wynwood Fresh Market, 4127 NW 2nd Ave., Miami; 305-531-0038 or 305-775-2166; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tues-Fri

Published: 3/09

Eaten here? Leave a review!