A Peek Inside Siena Farms' Brand New South End Store

All photos by Leah Mennies

Until recently, if you wanted to take home some of the expansive variety of produce from Siena Farms—a Sudbury farm run by Chris Kurth, husband of Oleana and Sofra toque Ana Sortun— you had to track it down at your local farmers market.

As of last Thursday, however, you can now find everything from pale white heirloom carrots to fresh eggs to dense coconut macaroons (from Sofra, of course) at the farm’s first brick and mortar shop, located at 106 Waltham Street in the South End in the space that was once Barbara Lynch’s Plum Produce (between The Butcher Shop and cookbook store Stir).

Recently, I headed down to the shop to get a mini-tour from farm market manager Trevor Sieck. “We have been looking for a retail space for several years, and this one kind of opened up. Barbara [Lynch] asked us if we wanted to lease the old Plum space, and the price was right,” he says. “Within about a month we were here.”

To celebrate the opening, the BL Gruppo is partnering with Siena Farms for a progressive holiday market on December 18 from 1-4 p.m.; there will be a bake sale at Stir, small bites at the Siena Farms, a cookbook signing with Sortun and Lynch from 2-3 p.m. at Stir, and a charcuterie demo at The Butcher Shop.

Scroll down to learn a bit more about how the store came to be, check out some highlights of what’s available for purchase now, and find out what you can look forward to in the future.

While much of the produce at the farm store comes directly from Siena Farms, they also feature goods from elsewhere, like these cranberries from Verrill Farm in Concord. “We also want to support other local food producers,” Sieck says.

While you may be tempted to write these off as holiday decorations, Sieck says that this entire variety of rare winter squash from Sparrow Ark Farm (including green hubbards, sunshine kabocha, musque de provence, and luxury pie pumpkins) is, in fact, edible.

Our pick for the prettiest offering? These Adirondack potatoes, with a surprising pink flesh, won out just barely over some pearly white carrots and bright watermelon radishes.

Given it’s close relationship with Sortun’s restaurants, there’s plenty of goodies on offer from Sofra, including hearty granola, rich coconut macaroons and decadent caramel bars. There’s also several take-out containers of Sofra’s signature mezze spreads.

While there’s currently a selection of cheeses (mozzarella, burrata to name a couple) from Somerville-based producer Fiore di Nonno, Sieck says that within the next five years, the farm hopes to have their own functional dairy, complete with milk, eggs and cheeses. In the closer future, he says to expect more prepared goods like canned and pickled veggies.

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