Our Life by Stella’s (Photo by Ash Daniel)
Jelena Nikolajevic has packed a lot into her small Fan shop, Boketto Wellness. There are serums and lotions, balms and scrubs, and even a selection of the softest, coziest textiles a body could want. Among them, patrons will also find products that echo Boketto’s philosophy of aligning the mind and body but are destined for one of life’s most sacred spaces: the pantry.
Within their small spaces, specialty shops including Boketto Wellness, Na Nin and Our Life by Stella’s combine unique offerings with something that brings us all together — food. The shops are home to curated collections of trendy olive oils, flavored vinegars, fragrant spices, and sweet and savory condiments to take culinary creations to new heights.
“Pantry is a big-selling category for us,” Nikolajevic explains. “My whole thing with introducing pantry into a wellness space is because wellness has to do with what you’re feeding your body. Food is thy medicine.”
Nikolajevic points to a container of Goddess Ghee, a women-owned, Asheville, North Carolina-based brand prized for its high smoke point and levels of vitamin K-2, believed to promote skin and bone health. Boketto carries a rotating selection of pure butter oils from Goddess Ghee, including Cacao Ritual, Brown Butter and Mushroom Magic.
Introducing new items is a thoughtful process. Before offering a product in store, Nikolajevic asks herself, “Can this be utilized in everyday cooking, but also what does it offer from a wellness perspective?” She looks for high quality, ethical sourcing and a story behind the products, as with spices from Diaspora Co. and syrups from Fat of the Land, which she discovers through online research.
“Our customers always have a lot of questions on all of our products,” Nikolajevic says. “I think educating customers on the benefits, applications and sourcing of our pantry items really helps our customers when deciding what they would like to purchase.” That education is something Nikolajevic takes seriously, researching brands to bring into the store, with an emphasis on small-batch, family-owned companies that are known for transparency. “You really should be aware and conscious about what brands you’re buying.”
Photo courtesy Boketto Wellness
On Lafayette Street, Our Life by Stella’s stocks luxury pantry items inspired by the owners’ Greek heritage and travels. Among the clothing and accessories, displays present wines from Santorini and products that highlight Greek producers including vinegars from Yiayia and Friend, and olive oil cake mixes from Elia. It’s a small, elevated extension of the food offered next door at Stella’s restaurant and across the street at the namesake market.
“We curate our pantry selection based on things that we truly love and use in our homes, and some products are versions of items that you might find in the traditional Greek home,” owner Stella Maria Giavos says. “Not everything is of Greek origin but might be Greek or Mediterranean in spirit. We’ve discovered various products on research trips to Greece and through social media.”
At vintage and in-house clothing retailer Na Nin, the petite pantry selection throughout the store consists of olive oils and vinegars from brands such as Graza and Brightland. Thanks to their convenience and quality, Graza’s squeeze-bottle olive oils are all the rage, and Brightland’s cold-pressed, small-batch oils are also popular among home cooks in the know.
“We began to introduce pantry items to our curation a few years ago with items such as tonic beverages and drinking vinegars,” Na Nin co-owner Isabel Lee says. “Eventually we branched out into olive oils and other gourmet goods by brands such as Wonder Valley, Brightland and Graza. We’ve incorporated these to our offerings because we strive for Na Nin to be experienced as a multidimensional lifestyle brand, beyond that of just clothing and accessories.”
Like Boketto, which hosts regular pasta pop-ups with Laine Myers of Oro, Na Nin also makes space for food through collaborative events that have featured baker Olivia Wilson and wines from Second Bottle. These curated events are a win both for the stores and the purveyors they feature, giving guests another reason to stop in and shop. They’re an obvious boon for roving makers such as Myers and Wilson, both of whom have built devoted followings but lack brick-and-mortar locations.
Graza olive oil, sold at Na Nin (Photo courtesy Na Nin)
During a pop-up in December, Na Nin invited Wilson to create a menu inspired by their holiday candle, taking the connection between food and lifestyle to a new level. “The candle smells like you just cut down a Christmas tree and you’re letting the branches relax while you sit on the couch with a cuppa and Louis Armstrong is on,” Wilson says. “I wanted to make a cake that echoed this feeling.” The resulting confection incorporated dried persimmons, a bergamot tea sponge, sweet lime curd, salty vanilla whipped cream and brown rice crunch.
Later this month, Na Nin will host a pop-up featuring Mother Shrub, a locally made small-batch brand of drinking vinegars, alongside Glare Goods, a husband-and-wife team who crochet and create housewares from found materials. Proceeds from the pop-up will benefit RVA Community Fridges.
For Boketto, Na Nin and Our Life by Stella’s, in-store pantry items and pop-ups are built into the business plan: All agree that these edible items make great gifts — gateway goods to encourage shoppers to come in and take a closer look at everything else the shop has to offer when their cupboard needs a little something special.
