New York has a way of making you feel like you’re part of the story. You’re not just seeing the city, you’re tasting it.
As Women’s History Month winds down, we acknowledge that supporting women-owned doesn’t end at the end of March. Here’s a trip-planning idea that feels both fun and meaningful: build one day around women-owned food businesses we feature at Like A Local Tours, and pair each stop with a little “herstory” tied to the neighborhood.
You can do this two ways:
DIY style: Pick 2 to 4 stops below and wander at your own pace.
Let us handle it: Book a Like A Local Tours experience and get the tastings plus the neighborhood storytelling, without overthinking logistics.
Chelsea / Meatpacking: Seed + Mill (Chelsea Market)
Chelsea Market is a must for first-time visitors, and Seed + Mill is one of those places that makes you stop mid-bite and go, “Wait… how is sesame doing this much?”
Launched by three women founders, Seed + Mill built something modern and joyful around an ancient ingredient.
What to order
Go tahini- or halva-forward. If you’re torn, ask what they’re most excited about that week.
Herstory flair:
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney adds a powerful layer to the story of Chelsea and the Meatpacking District. An artist, collector, and patron, she founded the Whitney Museum in 1930 to champion American artists who were often overlooked, and the museum’s original holdings were built from her own collection. Today, that legacy lives on in the Whitney’s current home in the Meatpacking District, where the museum stands just off Gansevoort Street as one of the neighborhood’s defining cultural anchors.
Patti Smith
Patti Smith brings a different kind of Chelsea history: raw, literary, and unmistakably downtown. Her voice is so tied to the neighborhood that the Hotel Chelsea still features her reflections on the building in its official history, underscoring how deeply she is woven into the area’s creative identity. She also helped preserve that era in cultural memory through Just Kids, her memoir of New York artistic life, which won the 2010 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Edie Sedgwick
Chelsea has long been a neighborhood for artists, outsiders, and creative risk-takers. Edie Sedgwick is one of the most iconic women tied to Chelsea’s cultural mythos. Edie Sedgwick was a 1960s New York “It girl” and Andy Warhol superstar, famous for her style, charisma, and tragic, short life.
What to do nearby
Walk the High Line right after for that “NYC in a movie” feeling.
Want Chelsea Market done the best way: bites + views + the backstory of what you’re looking at? Our Chelsea Market + High Line + Hudson Yards Food & History Tour includes stops in Chelsea Market and Market 57.
Pier 57 / Market 57: Bird & Branch (women-owned)
Bird & Branch is the kind of stop that makes a tourist day feel calmer and more local. On our Chelsea Market tour, it’s a perfect reset moment: something refreshing, a breather, and a reminder that the best NYC experiences often come from small places run with a lot of intention.
What to order
Go seasonal, or choose something bright and iced like the passionfruit iced tea if you’re in spring weather mode.
Herstory flair
This part of the West Side is modern New York, and it’s worth remembering it was built by a huge ecosystem of women behind the scenes across design, architecture, and development. From Diane von Furstenberg’s flagship store to incredible architecture by the late Zaha Hadid.
What to do nearby
Head up to The Roof at Pier 57 for an unexpectedly great, free view moment.
If you want Market 57, rooftop views, and the High Line without doing the “where do we go next?” shuffle, book the Chelsea Market + High Line + Hudson Yards Food & History Tour.
Lower East Side: Chomps-Élysées (Essex Market)
Tucked inside NYC’s historic Essex Market, Chomps-Élysées feels like a real neighborhood secret: warm, unfussy, and quietly charming.
It’s run by Tiffany “Tiff” Iung, a Brazilian-American maker who spent four years in Paris, including a chapter where they sold sandwiches from a vintage suitcase on a pink bicycle.
Chomps isn’t trying to be a big, fixed “concept.” The spirit is French more than the flavor, and the menu is intentionally flexible: it’s whatever Tiff makes that day. You’re not ordering the same thing everyone else ordered online. You’re getting the actual menu du jour.
What to order
Start with the soup of the day, which often includes vegan options (for example, orzo and chickpea with saffron, dill, spinach, and lemon, or sweet potato with coconut milk). If you want something more filling, check for grilled cheese, quiche, or baked extras like focaccia and cornbread.
Why it's a perfect NYC travel stop
Essex Market is a great “taste a bunch of NYC at once” anchor, especially if you’re exploring the Lower East Side, Chinatown, and Little Italy corridor (and it’s why we love bringing guests through the market).
CTA: If you want Essex Market with the neighborhood story and the context that makes everything around you click, book our Immigrant New York Food Tour. It’s our love letter to the Lower East Side’s food and history.
Lower East Side: Rebecca’s Cake Pops
Rebecca’s Cake Pops is a reminder that NYC desserts do not need to be fussy to be memorable. It’s playful, portable, and genuinely sweet in the way a vacation treat should be.
What to order
Get two. One to eat immediately, one for later when you’re back at the hotel and you suddenly want a little “we really did that” snack.
Herstory flair: Bella Abzug, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Jane Jacobs and more
Downtown Manhattan has always been a home base for bold voices. Bella Abzug is one of the most famous women tied to New York’s political history and organizing spirit. Bella Abzug was a bold New York congresswoman and feminist leader known for her signature hats and outspoken advocacy for civil rights and women’s equality.
Greenwich Village: Jane Jacobs
Before “walkable neighborhood” became a lifestyle buzzword, Jane Jacobs was fighting to keep Greenwich Village human-scale. She lived in the Village and helped push back against plans that would have expanded roadways through Washington Square Park and cut Lower Manhattan with an expressway.
Chinatown: Mei Lum
For a modern woman entrepreneur with real neighborhood gravity, Mei Lum is gold. As the fifth-generation owner of Wing on Wo & Co. and founder of The W.O.W. Project, she’s part preservationist, part cultural steward, and part reminder that women are still actively shaping Chinatown’s future.
Chinatown / Lower East Side: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee
Downtown Manhattan also carries the story of Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, a Chinese American suffragist who settled in Chinatown in 1905. At just 16, she helped lead the 1912 women’s suffrage parade on horseback from Greenwich Village, which gives your LES/Chinatown thread an extra jolt of historical electricity.
What to do nearby
Keep wandering through the LES into Chinatown or Little Italy and let the city do what it does best: surprise you.
CTA: Rebecca’s Cake Pops pairs perfectly with an Immigrant New York day. If you’d rather have the route mapped, the tastings handled, and a guide who can bring the neighborhood to life, grab tickets for our Immigrant New York Food Tour.
Two Easy Routes
If your ideal NYC day is “great bites, great stories, no overplanning,” that’s exactly what we do. Book a tour, show up hungry, and we’ll take it from there:
From
$68
Immigrant New York Food Tour: Lower East Side, Chinatown & Little Italy
- 3 Hours
- LES, Chinatown, Little Italy
-
Saturday 12pm
- COME HUNGRY!
- Private Tour
Private Chelsea Market, High Line & Hudson Yards Food & History Tour
NEXT STOP: BROOKLYN
Brooklyn Bridge / DUMBO: Emily Warren Roebling
If readers take their day across the river, Emily Warren Roebling is a perfect NYC heroine to include. When her husband became ill during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, she studied the plans, handled communications and instructions, and became central to the bridge’s completion.
Brooklyn / Bedford-Stuyvesant: Shirley Chisholm
Bedford-Stuyvesant was home to Shirley Chisholm, one of New York’s most groundbreaking political figures. Chisholm made history as the first Black woman elected to Congress, and in 1972 became the first Black woman to seek the presidency on a major party ticket. With her now-famous motto, “Unbought and Unbossed,” she embodied a kind of Brooklyn-born grit that changed the national conversation. Her legacy adds another layer to women’s history in NYC: not just entrepreneurship and cultural influence, but political power forged right here in the city.
Brooklyn’s women’s history also includes Sarah Smith Tompkins Garnet, a pioneering educator and suffragist whose impact reached far beyond the classroom. Born in Brooklyn, Garnet became the first Black woman principal in the New York City public school system and later founded the Equal Suffrage League of Brooklyn, helping connect the borough to the national fight for women’s voting rights. Her story is a reminder that Brooklyn women were not only building communities, but also shaping education, civil rights, and political change for generations to come.
Bonus Brooklyn entrepreneur add-on: Fany Gerson
A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Fany has worked in a range of fine-dining kitchens around the world. She is the founder of La Newyorkina and famous and absolutely delicious Fan Fan Doughnuts on the border of Clinton Hill and Bed Stuy. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Gourmet, Fine Cooking, Daily Candy, and more.
