10 Best Shopping in Asheville, North Carolina

Shopping is excellent and local all over downtown Asheville, with around 200 boutiques, including more than 30 art and crafts galleries. Several streets, notably Biltmore Avenue, Broadway Street, Lexington Avenue,Haywood Street, and Wall Street, are lined with small, independently owned stores. In fact, there are only two chain retailers in all of downtown.

French Broad Chocolate Lounge—so popular it had to move to this much-larger location on Pack Square (though the line is still sometimes out the door)—makes its own delicious chocolate candy, but that's just the start. As the name suggests, it's also a lounge, where you can sit in comfort and enjoy not only truffles and other premium chocolates but also ice cream, cookies, brownies, various kinds of hot and cold chocolate drinks, and specialty coffees and teas. Adjoining is the grab-and-go Chocolate Boutique. The owners also have a small chocolate factory and tasting room at 21 Buxton Avenue, with guided tours daily, starting at $3.

Just before its opening in 1929, the Grove Arcade, which covers an entire city block, was trumpeted as "the most elegant building in America" by its builder, W. E. Grove, the man also responsible for the Grove Park Inn. He envisioned a new kind of retail, office, and residential complex. Grove died before completing the project, and a planned 14-story tower was never built. Still, the building is an architectural wonder, with gargoyles galore. Now it's a public market with about 40 locally owned shops and restaurants, along with apartments, office space, and an outdoor market. A self-guided architectural tour (download a map from the website) takes about 45 minutes.

Odyssey Center for the Ceramic Arts has the largest number of working clay artists in the region. It has two ceramics galleries, plus pottery studios and clay classes. The main gallery, Odyssey Co-Op Gallery, has a large and high-quality selection of ceramic works, both functional and decorative, as well as figurative and abstract sculpture, by 25 juried clay artists. Odyssey Clayworks offers classes and has a gallery of clay work by students and others.

In a 1938 building that once housed a five-and-dime, Woolworth Walk features the curated work of more than 170 crafts artists, in 20,000 square feet of exhibit space on two levels. There's even a working soda fountain, built to resemble the original Woolworth luncheonette.

Sponsored by ASAP, nearly everything at this downtown market is local. Offerings vary but usually include produce, free-range eggs, homemade breads, cheeses, and crafts from some 60 local farms, bakeries, and craftspeople. From early April through December, every Saturday morning it covers an entire city block on North Market Street; January through March it moves indoors, to the Masonic Temple Building at 80 Broadway.

In this 1928 landmark building decorated with polychrome terra-cotta tiles, about 100 artisans show and sell their crafts. A second location two doors away, Kress Emporium II, has about 25 art and crafts stalls.

Established by the late arts entrepreneur John Cram, New Morning Gallery has more than 13,000 square feet of exhibit space in a prime location in Biltmore Village. The gallery, which has a national reputation, focuses on more popular and moderately priced ceramics, garden art, jewelry, furniture, and art glass.

More than 40 artists, craftspeople, and entrepreneurs in ceramics, painting, textiles, woodworking, and jewelry work in this complex of studios and galleries in the River Arts District. Several of the artists offer classes and there's lots of free parking.

Chocolate truffles and sea-salt caramels are favorites here, but you can also buy made-on-site items such as chocolate in the shapes of cowboy boots and high heels. Most items are sold for takeout, but there's limited in-store seating if you just can't wait to scarf down these delicious sweets with a cup of rich hot chocolate.