Weekend markets

For a lot of the city's food businesses, this is where the whole thing began.

The weekend market circuit is New York's principal proving ground for small food businesses. A stall costs far less than a lease, the footfall is enormous, and a vendor gets direct feedback from several thousand people in a day. A significant number of the city's now-established food businesses started at one of these.

Smorgasburg

Started in 2011 as a food-focused offshoot of Brooklyn Flea, and now the largest weekly open-air food market in the country. It runs on weekends through the warm months, with separate Saturday and Sunday locations in Brooklyn and additional sites in other years.

It is almost entirely prepared food — you go to eat, not to shop for ingredients. Dozens of vendors, most of them small operations, with a genuinely high hit rate.

Go early. By one o'clock on a fine Saturday the queues at the popular stalls are long, and the popular stalls are popular for a reason.

Brooklyn Flea

The original, launched in 2008. Primarily antiques, vintage and design rather than food, but with a food component and a shared lineage with Smorgasburg. Locations and seasons shift; the winter edition moves indoors.

Seasonal and holiday markets

From late November through December the city fills with holiday markets — Union Square, Bryant Park, Columbus Circle and Grand Central being the largest. All include food vendors, and the outdoor ones are as much about the setting as the shopping.

Bryant Park's winter village runs alongside a free ice rink, which makes it the one to bring people to.

Neighbourhood and cultural markets

Smaller markets run seasonally across the city — at parks, plazas, museums and churches, often tied to a specific community's food traditions. These are frequently the most interesting and are the least well publicised. Local sources are more reliable than city-wide listings for finding them.

Practical

All of these are seasonal and weather-dependent, and locations change between years — Smorgasburg in particular has moved sites more than once. Check the operator's own listings before travelling.

Bring cash as a backup, expect to queue, and if you are going with a group, split up and share: the whole point is to try more than one thing.