About Formaggio Kitchen
Formaggio Kitchen has been an institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts for over 30 years - a gourmand's paradise doubling as a neighborhood grocer. Our regular customers rely on us for their early morning cups of steaming hot coffee and freshly baked scones, croissants and muffins, often returning in the afternoons for a grilled panino, artisan baguette, chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano, a bottle of wine or a bag of organic salad greens. Evening brings the dinner crowd: devout followers of our chef's creations take home meals such as Niman Ranch veal stew, farm fresh vegetable risotto or a roasted organic chicken. Weekend visitors come to stock up on cheeses, cured meats & baked goods, always leaving with something they've never seen before that is sure to become a new house staple. And then there are the chefs - professional and amateur alike, those in the know are certain we'll have that special ingredient they can't find anywhere else.
Each year finds us traveling to the far reaches of the planet in search of the world's finest artisan products (read about our recent journeys in our Travelogue section) . We believe in the one-herd farmer in Corsica, the tiny storefront baker in Tuscany and the fifth-generation olive grower in Andalusia, each striving to preserve their traditional methods in a world of mass-produced, industrial food. Our shelves are brimming with products made by individual artisans, each as wonderful as the next: honeys from Sardinia & Piedmont sit aside farmhouse jams from Pays Basque & l'Ardeche, while spicy organic tomato sauce from Liguria neighbors briny Brittany fleur de sel. Marble slabs support cuts of cheese artistically arranged each morning into a "wall": a horizontal stretch running from Great Britain and North America, through France, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy, more than two hundred varieties in all.
But it is our cheese caves, built out of an old office deep in the nether-reaches of the basement beneath Huron Avenue, that makes us most proud. Constructed in 1996 (as the first of its kind in this country) with all the damp, musty, chilly characteristics of an Alpine hillside, the caves now hold our precious stock at their ideal temperature and humidity, creating both a place to age young wheels and maintain moisture in older ones. Ask for a visit next time you're here.
Whether visiting us in person or online, we invite you to browse our products and enjoy finding both new and old favorites. If you are online, visit our Store Tour page to take a virtual tour of our Cambridge store. You can also go online to find out about our sister stores: South End Formaggio in Boston and Formaggio Essex Market in New York City. Each store carries a similar selection of imported and domestic delicacies, but each with their own flair.
We also have a public page on Facebook which gives you similar updates, but also has room for discussions, photos, videos and other interactive features.
On Twitter, we send out 'tweets' periodically which fill you in on the latest happenings at the shop. These will vary from what cheeses we've just tasted or what events we're looking forward to. You can view our public profile or if you're a user of Twitter, you can follow our tweets.
We've been having fun with these media and we hope you can join us!
