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Spice vendor finds niche in NYC

By ADAM GOLDMAN | Associated Press Writer

May 5, 2008

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NEW YORK - With his flowing black hair, bushy beard and slight paunch, Behroush Sharifi hops off his bicycle and bounds into an expensive restaurant on the Upper West Side.

He takes the leather satchel hanging from his shoulder and starts to pull out little baggies packed with exotic spices, displaying them on a steel counter for chef John Fraser to examine.

"That's amazing," says Fraser as he tastes some ground sour grape. "We'll take this. Leave the whole bag. I'm serious. I'll buy it."

Such reactions aren't unusual when Sharifi _ aka the "Saffron King" _ peddles his wares to the city's most famous restaurants such as Babbo, Daniel and Jean Georges.

For the past six years, Sharifi has quietly filled a crucial niche in Manhattan, helping chefs complete intricate menus with his coveted spices.

But Sharifi is more than just a salesman. He's a throwback to a time in New York when chefs never bought products from vendors until they had a chance to touch, feel and taste them. Along the way, he has become indispensable for many chefs.

He's like an old-fashioned doctor who makes house calls to needy chefs.

"There is only probably a handful of people who come to you, and he's definitely the best of them," said Fraser, who worked at the famed French Laundry in California and two highly regarded Paris restaurants called Maison Blanche and Taillevent.

Sharifi's spice route stretches from China to Turkey. His exotic inventory includes Aleppo pepper from Syria, Indian pine nuts called Chalgozeh and Lebanese red hibiscus, among many others. He also has Greek mastic and Italian candied orange peels.

The erudite and gregarious Sharifi, who came to America in 1981 after spending time in England, never intended to get into the spice business.

It just sort of happened. While he was studying for his master's degree in New York City, Sharifi focused on mystical Iranian poetry. He found food-related passages dotted with saffron references.

Saffron dates back more than 3,000 years and was originally used as a dye and not in dishes. Cleopatra was said to put it in her baths, so did Nero in Rome; some have suggested it's an aphrodisiac.

"The word saffron is imbued in Persian poetry," Sharifi said. "It's not just a culinary ingredient."

It's also a commodity. And Sharifi realized that if he tapped his Iranian connections _ mainly his family _ he could sell it. But there was a hitch. The U.S. had a trade embargo against Iran.

When sanctions against Iran were finally eased in 1999 _ allowing the sale of food and medicine _ Sharifi soon went into business.

He bought the domain name SaffronKing.com and began figuring how he was going to import the spice. He turned to his family in Iran, relying on his cousins and their resourcefulness.

"Logistically it's a nightmare," he said. "Bribes aren't unusual."

Sharifi says he managed to get his first shipment of 220 pounds of saffron about six years ago from eastern Iran. Since then, he has slowly established a rapport with chefs who buy the saffron for as much as $88 an ounce.

The labor-intensive saffron is one of the most expensive spices in the world, with more than 75,000 flowers required to produce one pound. The spice is most commonly found in such favorites as paella and bouillabaisse and risotto Milanese.

Chefs say it's worth the steep price.