Tucked amid the Chianti Hills of Tuscany lies the medieval village of Castellina, where in a small vineyard, olives are harvested and pressed by hand in an exclusive effort made for a select group of buyers. The resulting extra virgin olive oil, with green, fruity notes and a slightly spicy finish, crosses the Atlantic in cork-sealed glass bottles to reach a singular American buyer: Olde Hudson, a gourmet specialty market in Hudson and the sole carrier of La Castellina olive oil in the United States.
Olde Hudson, founded and owned by Dena Moran, is Hudson’s epicurean one-stop shop. The store’s lengthy catalog is a feat of her careful, expert curation, consisting of what she considers to be the highest quality items from producers both local and global. “I wanted to create something that represented where I live,” she says, “but also what I’ve lived.”
Olde Hudson carries traditionally butchered prime aged beef, grass-fed and corn-finished; seasonal fish and seafood bought dockside at daily auctions and shipped overnight; 40 varieties of cheese, including the best-selling Brillat Savarin with truffles that goes for $60 per pound-and-a-half chunk; fresh produce; and pantry essentials like pastas, grains, spreads, and oils, among which La Castellina presides as the crowning jewel. Recently, they put together gift baskets inspired by Moran’s travels, thematically organized by region (Italy, Spain, the Mediterranean) and meal (Hudson Valley Breakfast, Bloody Mary Bonanza.) Food, she says, “takes you to different places, to another country from your own kitchen.”
Moran, who by turns describes cooking as her passion, escape, and therapy, is essentially self-taught. Her mother loved to cook, and Moran would wake up to the aromas of her mother’s meals in the early morning and return to them after school. She devoured cookbooks and food magazines and took a cooking class or two, but typically wings it these days, putting together dishes inspired by her own ideas rather than recipes and then tweaking them to her liking. After the hectic workday, “most people would think I’d be fully exhausted,” she says. “But I start to cook, and the next part of my day begins.”
Ever Expanding
In 2000, Moran and her husband bought a weekend home in Claverack while working together in the textile industry in Manhattan. Deciding to take advantage of their flexible work schedules, they moved upstate for good, and Moran soon found herself with a surplus of free time.
To keep busy, she began collecting and refinishing furniture, and found a tiny space for rent on Hudson’s Warren Street. In 2001, Moran launched Olde Hudson as an antique furniture and bath-and-body shop with the intention of moving into food, though she worried that Hudson didn’t have a market for a specialty grocer.
She started out hawking antiques alongside a small collection of non-perishables that she deemed to be of excellent quality. “From there, I decided that I really wanted to make a statement with cheese,” Moran recalls, “and I did. The response was actually overwhelming.”
Within a few months, Moran moved to a larger space down the street to build up Olde Hudson’s cheese inventory, and then added fresh meat, seafood, and charcuterie to complement them. The paradigm of the shop began to shift. “The other things became accent items on the wayside [of the food]. It’s a natural evolution of growth from the business I started and the growth of Hudson,” Moran says. “I grew along with Hudson.”
As the business rapidly expanded, so did the corresponding need for square footage. Over the past two decades, Moran moved Olde Hudson four times between storefronts on the same block to increasingly larger spaces. The shop is now a full-service grocery with a cafe and grab-and-go market of prepared items.
Moran opened the cafe in 2016, which offers breakfast, vegetable, and steak sandwiches; daily salads; soups; baked goods; and coffee drinks all made using the products on Olde Hudson’s shelves. The entirety of the menu is crafted from scratch in-house. “Everything is here,” Moran says. “We’re very proud of that.” Especially popular are the soups from homemade chicken stock, which are also sold on the market shelves. Though the cafe’s offerings undergo seasonal changes, Moran maintains that the constant is “a very simple menu all the time,” that lets the quality of the individual ingredients speak for themselves.
Olde Hudson is still expanding; Moran started a buildout this summer that will allow for additional cafe seating, kitchen capacity, and market area. Once the project is complete, she anticipates that Olde Hudson will continue to blossom.
“I consider it my home,” Moran says. “I take it very personally. My customers are my social life. I’ve seen so many people over the years grow up, in many ways.” With customers she discusses food and family, and she’s always ready to make suggestions about what to cook and how to do it. While on the phone, she gave me an impromptu lesson on which pasta shapes adhere the best to sauce. “I live this business,” Moran says. “It’s who I am, it’s what I love. It’s a big art project full of food.”
Olde Hudson is at 449 Warren Street in Hudson. Market hours are 10am-5pm Monday-Thursday & Sunday, 10am-6pm; Friday, and 9am-6pm Saturday. Cafe hours are 10-5 Monday-Thursday, 8-6 Friday-Saturday, and 8-5 Sunday.
