History
Formaggio Kitchen was established in 1978 to bring to the Cambridge community a sense of the specialty shops found throughout Europe. The store developed over the years as people responded to this vision but it wasn't until 1982 when a young manager came on the scene that the store started to fully realize its potential. Under the guidance of Ihsan Gurdal as manager and cheese buyer, the shop developed its catering business and it import business. Throughout the 1980's the store brought more and more exclusive items into the country from France, Italy and Spain. Eventually, Ihsan and Valerie took over the business and further built on their desire to bring the European-style of neighborhood shopping to Cambridge and Boston.
Cheese had always been one of Ihsan's primary attractions to the business and it naturally happened that Formaggio Kitchen developed their cheese selection to the point where it was unparalelled within the United States. In 1997 Ihsan built a cheese aging room out of the old office in the basement. It turned out to be a perfect environment for the cheese - the natural stone wall helps to maintain the correct humidity and temperature throughout the year. At the cave opening, we were proud to have our loyal customer Julia Child in attendance. As the first retail store with a cheese aging room, this was a highlight in our history which pushed us even further in our quest to offer our customers the best cheeses from around the world.
In 2000 Ihsan and Valerie opened South End Formaggio in Boston's historic South End. This store was the first of its kind in that area and we were happy to join a few committed restauranteurs such as Gordon Hammersley of Hammersley's Bistro.
Over the past decade, we have trained our focus on finding products that are produced in a sustainable manner by people who are commited to traditional methods of production and supporting local agricultural practices. These are the products we love and their producers are the people we love to visit. They understand the importance of supporting local artisans and find a common interest with us as their outlet to the American market.
In 2006 we opened Formaggio Essex housed in Essex Market, an historic open air market in the Lower East Side of New York City.
Throughout our history, we have been lucky enough to have the support of our customers, our friends and our families and we look forward to many more years of continued success.