A last-minute bottle of wine feels boring compared to a pickle crock, pasta-water-scented candle, or whole ham leg
Housewarming gifts are tricky. They are tricky by scale: larger than a host gift, smaller than a wedding gift. And they are tricky by kind: housewarming gifts should be practical and also personal both to the person giving the gift and to the household receiving it.
As I reach the home stretch of my 30s, I’ve noticed that some people develop their own trademark housewarming gifts. My mother — famous in the family for her salad dressings — inevitably gives a bottle of her favorite balsamic vinegar and a mini whisk. One good friend of mine always shows up at housewarmings with a top-of-the-line first aid kit — a gift that always seemed a bit grim before fires ravaged Los Angeles and it took on an air of good-neighbor poignancy. (The only housewarming gift we’ve been able to agree on as a society is, I believe, one of the worst gift choices there is. Why we feel so comfortable giving living plants as gifts confounds me. At that point, why not just gift a box of puppies, you maniac?)
That being said, a food-, beverage-, or kitchen-centered gift is a surefire way to warm a new home, whether a tried-and-true cookbook or a chic addition to a dinner party tablescape. Here’s a list of reliably excellent housewarming gifts; as a frequent entertainer and dinner-party-thrower, I’ve collected them over the years from memories of what I’ve both given to others (to great success) and received (to great delight). There’s something here for every price point and to suit all manner of giver and receiver, as long as they have taste as good as yours.
Everyone Loves a Timeless, Well-Written Cookbook
There are certain books every home should have, many of which are food-focused. The best cookbooks to give as housewarming gifts may vary depending on the appetite of your recipient, but I’ll share a couple of my personal favorites.
Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham and An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler and Alice Waters are classics. Both are beautifully written and contain an impressive array of recipes for simple but deeply satisfying home cooking. More than that, both present philosophies around preparing food, feeding ourselves, and feeding each other that go to the heart of what makes a house a home.
And if the new homeowner is a cheese fan? They need a Cheese Primer by Steven Jenkins — the beloved cheese tome among cheesemongers for a reason.
A Full Spices Restock
Nothing makes you feel quite as settled as knowing your spice cabinet is fully stocked with fresh, good-quality spices. My good friend still remembers the kindness of his sister who brought him a collection of quality spices after a bad breakup. They, more than anything, made his new bachelor pad a home.
There are excellent companies like Diaspora Co. and Burlap and Barrel that offer high-quality customizable spice bundles. I like to buy a masala tin and stock them with spices I know my friends would love.
No matter which spices you choose, be sure to include Divakar’s Tellicherry No. 4 whole black peppercorns from Reluctant Trading. This pepper—my god. I crunched down on an entire peppercorn once and could see other people’s thoughts.
Extremely Fancy Fruit
Specialty fruit — hand-reared, intricately wrapped, painstakingly manicured, and quivering with sweet juices — is the housewarming or host gift of choice in many Asian countries. But fruit makes a great gift wherever you live, and I’d argue some of the best fruit has been from right here in America all along.
For stone fruit, I am forever loyal to Frog Hollow Farm in California, offering everything from perfect avocados to sweet, juicy mangoes.
For something more exotic, Miami Fruit delivers boxes of rare and tropical fruit that will bring some sultry jungle sunshine into even the coldest winter kitchen.
And for the best pineapple of your life, order from the Maui Pineapple Store in Hawaii.
If you want to try the Japanese stuff, you can find almost everything at Ikigai Fruits. Do they have the famed Bijinhime extra-large strawberry you ask? The one that goes for $399 per berry? Of course they do! Maybe you and 10 friends could go in on one. (See also: these $130 Korean muscat grapes on Goldbelly.)
Too tough to decide which fruit to order? Try Flamingo Estate’s fabulously curated Peak Season Fruit Box, which currently includes Cosmic Crisp apples, Medjool dates, Moro blood oranges, and more.
Make Their House Smell Like an Expensive Hotel Lobby
A new house is, olfactorily speaking, a clean slate, and, as such, scented gifts can make great housewarming presents. Still, this year’s “hottest candle” will leave your abode smelling dated within a season. I much prefer gifting the trademark smells of fancy hotels. Hotel scents are timeless, luxe, and transportive by definition — and an entire industry has sprung up producing dupes for their lobby smells. Find out where your friends had their honeymoon and buy a room diffuser for that smell or buy one for the hotel that they’ve always wanted to visit and can’t afford.
I’ve been a Shangri-La man since an extended stay in Hong Kong (the diffuser below is directly inspired by its signature scent, with notes of lemon, ginger, vanilla, and jasmine), but now that spring is coming I’m considering a switch to Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc.
… Or a Favorite Food Memory
With this gift guide curated with food-lovers in mind, it’s worth noting the abundance of incredible food-inspired candles that have popped up in recent years. Two highly giftable examples: Boy Smells’ Banana Pudding candle, made in collaboration with Magnolia Bakery, and DS & Durga’s Pasta Water — a bit of a novelty candle, no doubt, but a good one.
Electric Candles Are Surprisingly Chic
Romance isn’t dead — it’s just gone electric. While everyone has been watching the growth of AI, I’ve had my eye on the improving technology of electric candles. Hear me out. Candles are wonderful, but filling your house with candles is a fussy, expensive, and potentially dangerous proposition.
Electric candles have long had a deserved reputation for tackiness, but the current crop of candles are of a different breed altogether. They exude a warm candlelike light, they flicker, and you truly forget that they are not the real deal. Also, switching on all your candles with a remote control exudes the perfect amount of cheeky sleaze.
Now my living room and dining room are crowded with candlesticks and candelabras and sconces. Even a Tuesday dinner for one now feels like a scene from Beauty and the Beast.
Decadence in a Tiny Tin
Yes, tinned seafood is trendy at the moment, but I would argue that it also makes a perfect housewarming gift. Tinned seafood is shelf-stable, requires no valuable fridge real estate, looks beautiful — the packaging these days, my god! — and is both affordable and luxuriant in equal measure.
I recommend consulting this expertly researched guide (full disclosure: I wrote it), pick the cans you think your friend would most enjoy, and bundle them with a copy of Sol e Pesca, the cookbook from the eponymous canned seafood restaurant in Lisbon. Maybe throw in a few tins of chocolate sardines, too. Charming!
A Bottle of Special Booze
Yes, one of the most frequently gifted items at any housewarming party is a good old bottle of wine; it is a tried and true (read: boring) choice.
If you know your new homeowner would especially appreciate a particular bottle of wine, go for something special. If your budget extends to it, a bottle of excellent Champagne is a safe bet. But I always try to think a bit further outside the box (but within the home bar), and find the bottle of booze that I know they would love but haven’t tried or would never buy for themselves.
These days that invariably means a bottle of Red Breast 12 Year Irish whiskey. This stuff is magic — everyone who tries it immediately falls in love with it. It sits in that perfect sweet spot between whiskey styles and even converted a lifelong bourbon drinker like me. At under $60, it’s relatively affordable within its category.
Friend isn’t a whiskey drinker? No problem — try a Sauternes. Dessert wines are coming back into fashion in recent years, and why shouldn’t they? They’re an indulgent but admittedly delicious way to conclude a dinner party (or any meal, really), and also pair wonderfully with cheeses and nuts for an anytime snack-and-sip session.
A Pickle Crock
Fermenting is all the rage these days, but I’ve always found the boiled mason jars, two-way valves, masking tape and Sharpies too fussy. That changed when I discovered the old ways of the “forever pickle.” (Google tells me that I might have made up the term forever pickle...)
Keeping a crock of pickling liquid in the fridge where I can drop in produce as I garden or cook has changed the quality of my sandwiches, salads, and gut health immeasurably. For Western traditional fermentation, storage in Ohio Stoneware is the go-to. But I also love Asian pickling crocks, especially those out of China and Korea with their cool earthenware sides, round bellies, and ingenious water seals. You can also get glass ones on Amazon for very reasonable prices.
A Good Old-Fashioned Radio
There is something so soothing, so kitchen-table cozy about listening to the radio in the morning. And in this current hellscape where the demands of staying sane and responsibly informed can be impossible to balance, I’ve found limiting my news to the radio while I make my coffee perfectly hits that sweet spot between totally disengaged and suicidal.
Aside from filling your home with music, gentle voices, and knowledge, radios are also beautiful objects. I keep this dapper, retro-cool fellow on my desk in my office but would love to receive something a bit more grand like this for the living room where I can listen to NPR while I do my crossword. Some models also offer Bluetooth integration for old-school appeal combined with modern practicality.
Wine Glasses That Give ‘Memorable Dinner in London’
My go-to housewarming gift used to be a set of the wine glasses used and sold by St. John, the London-based and arguably perfect restaurant: solid, squat, restrained, and precisely designed for drinking more wine than you probably should. Sadly, they no longer sell them.
Still, there are great options for glasses that embody that St. John ethos: quietly decadent and reassuring in a way that doesn’t distract from the pleasure of what you’re trying to consume. Even though they have a totally different look, these tumble-style wine glasses somehow still exude St. John to me and would make a very practical gift.
I also love, and use at home, these hand-blown Moroccan glasses from one of my favorite homeware stores, Pure Atlas in Palm Springs.
Flowers for Days
Bringing fresh flowers are the next best thing to gifting sunshine itself. Unfortunately, flowers (like us all) die, making a bouquet a better host gift than housewarming gift. But, you can’t go wrong with a fresh flower delivery subscription.
If you’re in Los Angeles, I love the flower subscription from decadent lifestyle maven Flamingo Estate. Its weekly fresh-cut flowers are beautiful, seasonal, and ample — enough for an arrangement in every room or to make your studio apartment look like a very cheery funeral parlor. For non-Angelenos, Urbanstems and The Bouqs Co. both offer a wide variety of appealing options at various price points, the latter of which has charming bouquets of dried flowers that offer spatial cheer for months or even years without replacing.
A Lazy Susan for Your Refrigerator
Condiments are something of a problem for me. My addiction reached its peak during the pandemic when I actually ordered a separate mini fridge to handle the overflow of sauces, dips, and condiments. Instead of enabling such madness, may I recommend the three-word magical solution that changed my life: the refrigerator lazy Susan.
Now I gleefully spin my condiments like a DJ with no errant chile paste or miso tub going forgotten in the back, to mold over unseen. This simple but life-changing fridge upgrade makes a great gift. Trust me on this.
The Game-Changing Everything Pot
Oh, donabe, what can’t you do? Donabes, the beautiful, versatile clay cook pots from Japan, come in different shapes and sizes, each perfected for a different purpose like steaming, serving soups and stews, or making rice.
Donabes aren’t just versatile and timeless; they’re gorgeous. Mine remains forever in pride of place out on my stove. I highly recommend the donabes from Bernal Cutlery, a beautiful cookware, knife, and homeware store in San Francisco. Gift yours with a copy of Donabe: Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking by Naoko Takei Moore and Kyle Connaughton.
Something Practical, Like an Entire Leg of Really Good Ham
Probably the best gift I’ve ever received was an entire leg of peanut-fed Surryano Ham from Edwards Virginia Smokehouse along with a ham stand and special jamón knife. Edwards makes the best ham on Earth, and I’ll happily fight any European who thinks different. Sadly their smokehouse burned down in 2016, and since then, whole legs have been difficult to come by.
Instead, I’d spring for a leg of the classic Spanish stuff: black-hooved bellota negra if you have a truly serious pile of money to burn and are really looking to impress, but even the standard serranos are excellent.
Having a whole ham leg at home changes you. You cook everything in ham fat; parties take on a deranged, frenzied tenor; your house starts to smell of a rustic country inn; your hands crisscross with tiny cuts from the razor-sharp ham knife. It’s a wonderful way to live!
Ice Cream on Tap
I always say that if you love someone, you should empower them to eat ice cream every day. The Ninja CREAMi promises just that: professional quality ice cream made easily and on your very own countertop. Honestly I was dubious of the entire endeavor, and TikTok’s breathless fawning seemed overly confident. But I was so wrong. The Ninja CREAMi is a wonder and fully delivers on its promise. I’ve turned the lemons in my garden into flawless lemon lavender sorbet, and the leftover protein shakes in my fridge into creamy indulgent peanut butter chocolate ice cream (gains!). The CREAMi has helped me realize my dream of a daily ice cream sundae enjoyed in the bath. Perfect for the entertainer and the homebody — name a better housewarming gift!
There you have it — an eclectic (if not a touch eccentric) guide to the perfect housewarming gift.
If money is tight, don’t worry. The best housewarming gift I’ve received wasn’t really a gift at all, but a card from my father — an architect known for his good taste and spatial awareness — promising to spend a day helping me move furniture and hang pictures. It was a kindness I will never forget. But a pickle crock does the trick, too.
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