What to Eat

Saltwater Taffy Latest Retro Treat to Get the Brooklyn Small-Batch Treatment

Photo: Danny Kim/New York Magazine

It had to happen, especially in this season of seaside culinary hipsterification: Artisanal Brooklyn meets Rockaway boardwalk with Salty Road, Marisa Wu’s new line of saltwater taffy in flavors like bergamot, peppermint, and vanilla. (Hibiscus and black cherry are coming soon.) Wu’s a self-taught confectioner who started making candy in junior high. “I was one of the chubby kids who loved to stand around in cake-decorating stores,” she says. Since then, she’s interned at the Meat Hook and spent last summer stocking local and organic produce at Rockaway’s Veggie Island, whose owners planted the Salty Road seed in Wu’s mind. Now she’s pulling taffy between shifts at Liddabit Sweets and Four & Twenty Blackbirds. “It’s pretty physical,” says Wu, who plans to collaborate with a Williamsburg gardener and floral designer on botanical flavoring extracts. Find her nostalgic handiwork ($5 for a six-pack) at Veggie Island, the Bedford Cheese Shop, and Four & Twenty Blackbirds.

Saltwater Taffy Latest Retro Treat to Get the Brooklyn Small-Batch Treatment