PHOTO: F. MARTIN RAMIN/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, STYLING BY ANNE CARDENAS
What delivers a thrill quite like the one that comes with a mystery gift in the mail? Subscription boxes containing everything from cosmetics to dog toys to menswear capitalize on that frisson of surprise and discovery—plus the obvious convenience of trying something new without leaving the house. Lately we’ve seen a boomlet of boxes targeting adventurous eaters. These packages facilitate armchair travel via snacks, sweets and quick-assembly meals from around the world, often accompanied by stories and recipes. The best of the lot feature expert curation and tasty treats you won’t easily find stateside, even in your favorite gourmet shop. Sure beats smuggling them home in a suitcase.
Gastronomia della Grandma
The copiously stuffed Nonna Box captures the generous spirit of an Italian grandmother through its rustic recipes from genuine old-country nonnas (if you believe the marketing materials). Founder Guido Pedrelli, a native of Emilia Romagna, moved to San Francisco five years ago with his American wife. Homesickness for Italy, he says, inspired his subscription-box startup idea, launched in 2015.
Mr. Pedrelli hired an Italian food blogger to collect the recipes and grandmother bios that arrive with each regionally themed box. He has yet to feature his own nonna, who ran a trattoria near Bologna when he was growing up.
My Abruzzo box arrived stuffed with the building blocks of a three-course meal, along with recipes from Nonna Palmerina, a “naturally strong-willed” matriarch from the village of Ari. Making the most of the box took a bit of work—the contents are just the starting point.
Planet Eats
Try the World, a pioneer in international food subscription, was started by a pair of expat grad students— Kat Vorotova from Russia and David Foult from France—while they were studying at Columbia University. In early 2013 the company debuted with a Valentine’s Day “Paris Box” filled with imported French foods sourced from shops around campus. Today they do the importing themselves—more than 2 million items from more than a dozen countries last year—with help of a team that scours the globe, working with local trade commissions and tourist offices to discover new products.
Every month subscribers receive seven to eight packaged foods from a different country in a Tiffany-blue box. A Culture Guide features blurbs on each product and recipes from a local chef who helped curate the collection. The Paris Box, which remains in rotation in varying forms, arrived as my July subscription, with contents from across France selected by Paris chef Christophe Schmitt (of Michelin-starred Le Diane).
Vive Le Fress
The young French couple behind the year-old Bon Appetit Box—San Francisco transplants Zoe Capdevilla, 26, and Bertrand Corp, 27—are still in startup mode with a bare-bones staff of interns and only four basic boxes shipped out so far. While most subscription services offer choices only when it comes to size or frequency of delivery, Bon Appetit has you choose a French food box à la carte on their website along a breakfast, café or apéritif theme. Each one comes filled with a half-dozen small items sourced from outside importers. There are also mini versions of the various boxes available.
Ms. Capdevilla and Mr. Corp are the cheerful face of their brand, pictured on a welcome postcard (“Bonjour! Let’s start our journey to France.”) that arrives with each compact red-and-white box. My Provence Apéritif Box featured four jarred spreads (a few tapenades, an artichoke pesto) and three types of crackers.
Try On the Boot
Eattiamo, launched by three high school friends from Italy, debuted in June, dispatching its first big box of artisanal ingredients to American subscribers. The company promises a full meal for four people inside every box—with (almost) no need to purchase anything else. A full-time scout searches for unique products from up and down the boot, imported direct to the company’s New Jersey warehouse. The first themed box focused on Cinque Terre, the Mediterranean region where the founders grew up.
For the second box, which landed on my kitchen counter this summer, they enlisted a top chef, Enrico Crippa of three-Michelin-starred Piazza Duomo in Piedmont, to guest curate. (Mr. Crippa’s restaurant is owned by the Ceretto wine family, a major Eattiamo investor.)
This substantial box arrived stuffed with 6 pounds of good things to eat along with detailed instructions for turning it all into a meal. A glossy card offered an easy-to-follow recipe for transforming tomato juice from Portofino into an Italian Bloody Mary, an aperitivo served with the chef’s favorite black olives and sun-dried tomatoes.
