Holiday Shopping 2023: Walter Stewart’s Market

For this installment of our local holiday shopping series, we talked to Ann Cheney, store manager at Walter Stewart’s Market. 

Here’s a transcription of our conversation.

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Hand-cut and -tied Chateaubriand filet mignon center cut approximately 2-lb. piece, French rack of lamb with rosemary and pomegranate seeds, Berkshire-style ham slices and other items at Walter Stewart’s Market, 299 Elm St. Credit: Michael Dinan

New Canaanite: Talk to me a little bit about Walter Stewart’s and what the store likes to do during the holidays. 

Ann Cheney: Walter Stewart’s is the New Canaan community market and we like to have everything for our many customers, whether it’s an easy dinner preparation or an extravagant pull-out-all-the-stops holiday meal, meal ingredient or catering. We do that all throughout December.  

Charcuterie board, 12-month-aged gruyere, prosciutto with speck, truffled brie, figs, imported parmesan wheel, Blinis and Petrosian caviar (Parisian company, headquartered in New York City and Stewart’s is the exclusive east coast purveyor outside of their hub), at Walter Stewart’s Market, 299 Elm St. Credit: Michael Dinan

What kind of things are people coming in to look for, specifically, during the holidays?

Our customers are looking for special gifts, treats for the grandchildren, treats for themselves. We offer a wide variety of candy and floral items, in terms of gifts. And we offer traditional items that people are also looking for, things that evoke memories from their childhoods. They might come from Europe or another part of the globe. And we try to stock those, so we have quite a few fourth quarter items to address that. 

Assembled pre-built Gingerbread Houses ($19.99), at Walter Stewart’s Market, 299 Elm St. Credit: Michael Dinan

Walter Stewart’s has its well-known deli counter and meat department at the back. What are some of the things that you specifically make ready for your customers there? 

Customers look to us to help them out with their holiday table. Our meat department is a great place to start ,and we have a really nice assortment of products to show you.  Our meat cutters are very skilled and prepare beautiful roasts, rib roasts, filet, beef filet, beautifully prepared and ready for your oven. Our deli and catering department offers a full range of catered items. Everything from full meals, which would include our filet meal. It’s soup to nuts, literally soup to—well, maybe not nuts—but dessert.  It includes the entree, sides, rolls, a soup and a festive holiday dessert. I have found those to be very helpful during the holidays personally. Our catering also includes everything from sides and soups, to beautiful desserts, baked products. Our quiches are wildly popular for Christmas brunch. And then throughout the season we offer a wide range of easily prepared oven-ready—dare I say microwave-ready—items to make your meal preparation easy while you’re focusing on  holiday preparations.

Range of candy products, including Neuhaus imported chocolates from Belgium (inventor of the chocolate bon-bon), Lake Champlain organic chocolate from Vermont, Fritz Knipschildt signature chocolate collection, holiday packages and everyday items such as salted caramels, at Walter Stewart’s Market, 299 Elm St. Credit: Michael Dinan

So far we’ve talked about food. What are some other items that you have here that you’d want to let people know about?

This year we’ve focused on our floral program and we’ve really concentrated on  expanding our floral offerings so that our customers can pick up items for all parts of their home. We have a beautiful decorated box with trees. We have wreaths. We have beautiful decorated urns for your porch or front doorway. Those are some new things that customers may not associate us with, but they can now. Also, we have a really fun variety of gift items, everything for your tabletop—from gravy boats and platters—to frill picks, beautiful linens, dish towels, tea towels, candles.

Fat Stone Farm maple syrup, Grade A Amber and Grade A Dark, 100% Connecticut maple syrup, Mount Mansfield syrup from Vermont and local honeys such as Stonewall Apiary Honey, raw and unfiltered honey from Hanover, Conn., as well as Andrews Honey from Silvermine, at Walter Stewart’s Market, 299 Elm St. Credit: Michael Dinan

We have beautifully scented holiday candles and everything that you could possibly need for your home. Tons of paper goods. Everyone needs beautiful paper plates for serving dessert at the end of the meal, and we have a wide variety of Caspari items which we’ve carried for quite a while. We offer probably the best  assortment of products in New England and we’re very proud of that in our association with Caspari and also April Cornell to lay out a beautiful table.

Walter Stewart’s Market at 299 Elm St. (here on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter) is open: Monday – Friday 7:30am – 7:30pm, Saturday 7:30am – 7pm and Sunday 8am – 6pm.