I hanker for a hunka, a slice, a slab, a chuncka.... mmm mmm splurge here..... cheese.

We love the Formaggio store, but we had a disappointing experience with a Formaggio class. We're reviewing it here because we don't see another place. We're also a little frustrated that Formaggio didn't ask us for any feedback on our experience. The class in question was the cheese class taught by Vermont Butter & Cheese's founder. It was pricey -- $55 each for two hours -- but it would have been more than worth it if we had learned anything about cheesemaking. Instead, we got a 2-hour pitch for Vermont Butter & Cheese products. The actual cheesemaking instruction was minimal at best and focused on random cheese no one wants to make (she couldn't even suggest a way to the use queso blanco she made). The value for this class was very low. We would have felt ok if we had gotten to take the cheese cookbook (cooking WITH cheese, not cooking cheese), but instead they tried to sell it to us. We know cheesemaking is a slow process that is hard to instruct on, but this teacher didn't seem to have put any thought in how to get around that. She just showed up, demod her products, and made some cheeses that happened to be easy to make quickly. Really disappointed. read more

Amazing. They supplied the cheese for a wine tasting I attended (and before you mark me as a pretentious slob, it was my first one, and cost a mere $10) and I was floored. During my first visit to the store, I became a believer in cheese. Extensive selection of cheese from all over the world, a helpful staff that was nice to me even though I am obviously no gourmand, and free samples! They also sell cold cuts, pastries, imported good like olives and jams, beer and wine, and some fresh produce. Go if you're planning a fancy romantic dinner and want to wow your sweetie with an appetizer. read more

What's obvious is that this place is a serious cheese shop, with one of the largest selections around. What's surprising is the volume of other foods they manage to cram into a small store such as wine, charcutiere, chocolates, and even fresh produce. It's also another place to find the previously elusive pimenton flavored chorizo and smokey jamon serrano from Spain. read more

AMAZING selection of cheese from around the world, and highly knowldgeable staff. Fantastic place for cooks and foodies. Cheese is definitely the main attraction for me, but I've also bought wonderful fresh produce, unusual jams and jellies, Italian honey, baked goods, prepared foods, spices, and beverages. My only complaint is that the store- actually, the cheese area in particular- is small and cramped and tends to be overcrowded on the weekends. It would be nice to have a larger cheese area, where you don't always feel like you're in someone's way. But, oh the cheese! I can't buy bland cheese from the supermarket anymore because this place has spoiled me rotten! read more

the store's selection is incredible and I agree with past reviewers, the cheese guys are really hot and friendly! cheese wine, jams, olives, chocolate and then a small grocery shop attached. it's all good here! read more

Yes, the cheese, yes the wine, yes the produce, yes the naughty bakery / chocolates...yes to all that. But woah.........the CLASSES. I love a place where they take time to serve you well and offer and amazing selection and on top of that teach you. Great classes! LOVE the glass bottle milk too - yum. read more

I travel here a number of times a year from NYC, because it is one of the very best foodie places in the country. Basically I just go to the cheese department and ask for the most unique to them cheeses available that day. After many tastes, I have a very full cart. Add some condiments, some meat, a bottle and bread and I am the most popular guy in the house. read more

Wonderful spot! Delicious cheeses! BEAUTIFUL flowers. A real treat. A great spot to go to grab some cheese before heading over to picnic at Fresh Pond. read more

Dear Baby Jesus, Since I'm going to be cooking for myself at school next year, I have quite a giant favor to ask: please, please, please inspire a burning desire for the owners of FK to build an outpost in Newport. Really, that's all I want at the moment (I'm sure I'll come up with a few more requests soon, so do enjoy this surely fleeting moment of solitude). If you could possibly arrange it, I'd be eternally grateful, not to mention incredibly well fed, and, I suppose, broke. But broke is okay in this situation, so don't let concern for my weeny colleigate wallet scare you off of this! I'ma talk straight with you, J: I need this to work. If it doesn't, I may take up another habit. Fruit maybe, or crack, or something else. And I really don't ever want to leave my cheese days behind. It's been real, J. Thanks ever so much, Sarah read more

The quality of their baked goods is way too variable, given how much they charge.

Wonderful cheeses, and a great and varied selection at that. The olives are also noteworthy. The bread, vegetable, and charcuterie sections are ordinary. A few interesting beers, wines, and chocolates. Expensive. read more

A candy store for lovers of fine cheeses, meats, breads, and indeed confections. Expensive, yes, but you get what you pay for. The knowledge of the staff is also worth paying for! read more

great wine - check great cheese with samples of many varieties - check great selection of quality meats - check great produce - check awesome customer service - check read all this already in other reviews - check So why am I adding to the list? well because I came here for lunch today. not sure what brought me here - just a random 'looking for a new option I haven't Yelped about' and somehow on my way to Fresh Pond, I veered this way and thank the sandwich gods I did. I just had the most awesome, fresh salami and cheese sandwich - meat was sliced super thin and was tasty - cheese was chunks, right out of the cheese shop (ok, I know that sounds obvious - but it wasn't sliced deli cheese - it was cutoffs from a big chunk of tasty cheese) - all contained in a mini baguette of crusty goodness. And not a condiment to be found on it. Know why? Didn't need it. As much as I am a mustard fiend, it would have distracted from the perfection that this sandwich was..... and best thing - sandwich plus and apple - 5 bucks and change. OK, so the rest of the store isn't as reasonably priced. Yeah, you likely won't buy your weekly prodcue from this place. But I find it suits three purposes perfectly 1. need some cool grub for having people over 2. need some cool grub for having a bite for lunch 3. need some cool grub for _____________ . Parking for this place is a pain, even with a Cambridge sticker. Resist every urge you have to throw in the towel and skip visiting this place after your third lap looking for a spot. It's worth the hassle read more

A gourmet artisan fantasy. An urban LEGEND. Save up for this trip - you're gonna need it for all the top quality cheeses, breads, meats, hard to find mushrooms, chocolates and the endless melange of food snobbery. I don't know how they manage to pack so much into this storefront. If traveling by car, I recommend an early midweek trip so you can really take your time to explore and quarters for the meters. I cannot wait to return here and I'm sure to find something new and exciting every time! read more

You can't find a better selection of cheese nor a more knowledgeable staff. I live nearby and can shop there for a party or for dinner. I love that they get as much quality locally grown products as well as the best most interesting and delicious cheeses worldwide. Just walking in is an education in food. My kids love the marshmallows (the long stick ones), the madeleines, the lollipops and my daughter is a lover of stinky cheese. read more

cheese and more cheese! you will never beat the knowlege of the mongers. find me better cheese in the u.s. 40 year veteran so sorry i cannot make your 40th. read more

I want to hide here when the store closes and move in like those kids in the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Looking for 100 kinds of honey? Or perhaps some Parisian-style macarons and petit fours? Look no further for the best tea, jam, coffee, chocolate, spices, beer, wine, and produce, all lovingly selected and curated to make you clap your hands with glee. But most of all, come here to build your cheese and charcuterie plates. These people are serious, and they've built one of the best-known shops on the east coast. Giant legs of beasts hang from overhead. They cure their pancetta and make their own sausages and terrines. They personally taste the wares of the cheesemakers from France, etc. and then age them further in their cheese cave. And they unwrap each cheese each night and scrape the exteriors for two hours to ensure every customer gets a fresh piece. read more

UTOPIA FOR FOODIES. Minus one star due to the combination of the lack-of-parking sitch, weekend crowd, & general expensiveness, but not enough to keep me from returning or giving a rave review anyhow. I could easily spend hours browsing this shop and thousands of dollars (if only I were rich) on specialty grocery items like duck legs, squid ink spaghetti, imported Costa Rican vanilla beans, and a host of other food items I've only ever seen as mystery basket ingredients on the Food Network show "Chopped." Cheese samples are spread out throughout the shop, and I tasted some great ones. They have quite the selection of cheeses, and even a cheese cave underneath the store you can sometimes buy tickets to tour, which I'd love to do one day. Rows of cooking and baking spices line one wall, and there is a bakery and produce section in the back end. I will absolutely be back hopefully on a weekday when it's less crowded and I feel more at ease to take my time and browse and ask questions. read more

Chocolates, cheeses, cookies, fresh produce... and Saturday barbecue. Love it.

Too bad the day we visited was quite a wet one! While visiting there was a variety of gourmet meats, cheese, deli style dishes, produce. I wish I could have browsed for an hour at least but we were on a mission to do more exploring. How lucky are the neighbors of this market?? If we are ever in town again, we will be sure to spend more time at this gem. read more

Confession: sometimes I go to a party just because I hope somebody will bring something from Formaggio. When I grow up I'll just shop there myself. read more

Formaggio Kitchen is an oasis in its little neighborhood of specialty cheeses, wines and pastries and bread that are made onsite daily. What also makes this little market unique is the great local foods they carry that are in season as well as the flowers and floral arrangements available. When you are looking to mix it up a bit and try new things, Formaggio Kitchen is a great place to experiment with new local food and beverages. read more

I almost cried the first time I walked in here and saw so much YUMMY cheese. I can't remember who helped us, but he let us try little pieces of everything before we bought it and even sold us really small portions (think 1/6 of a pound) so that we could get and try a lot. He used to go to the Slow Food Institute in Italy (piedmont I think?) and knew sooooo much about cheese. They were so nice, had so much amazing cheese, I love this place and nag my boyfriend to go back just about every two days! read more

On a recent trip to Formaggio Kitchen I walked past the fridge and spied some eggs from Wicken Fen farm in Topsham, Vermont. They had packages of tiny quail eggs (which I'd only seen on TV and in restaurants), huge goose eggs (which I don't think I'd ever seen before anywhere), and beautifully colored chicken eggs (which I couldn't resist). It was only when the woman rung them up at the register that I realized they were $8.95 for a half dozen! Holy chicken shit!! Are you kidding me?! I tried to remind myself that the price of conventional eggs doesn't factor in the true costs to our health or the environment, but my mind immediately started reeling with questions: What percentage of my $8.95 was going to get back to Fran Hurlburt at Wicken Fen and how much would be pocketed by Formaggio? How much of the markup -- insane or not -- was justified by the fact that I wouldn't even know about Wicken Fen if it weren't for the Formaggio's foraging efforts? And what the heck IS the true cost of a half dozen clean eggs anyway? Ok, on to the eggs themselves. Hooray! I fried them sunny side up with just a dash of salt and pepper. I also cooked some Formaggio-sourced Niman Ranch applewood-smoked bacon (Niman partners with 600 family farms across the US that raise their meat naturally) and toasted some organic 7 grain bread from Nashoba Brook Bakery in West Concord, MA (delivered by Boston Organics). (You can see pictures of my pretty eggs both pre- and post-frying at http://www.wickedflavory.com/2008/01/golden-no-make-that-platinum-e.html.) Were they worth the cost? It could have been all in my head, but I'm pretty sure I detected something subtly "healthy" about them. It's almost as if the yolks tasted like the hay the eggs were delivered in. But for $8.95 I was expecting these eggs to absolutely knock my socks off, so I'm going to have to limit my Wicked Fen purchases to very, very special occasions. What's the point of this whole story? Formaggio Kitchen is SO much more than a cheese shop. Go explore. read more

Formaggio is one of my favorite specialty food shops in the Boston area. Their selection of cheeses is pretty unprecedented (Wine and Cheese Cask, which is closer to where I live, doesn't compare), and although its a bit far and bit more expensive, it's worth it. read more

Cheese Nirvana! As someone who could live on cheese, olives, and bread, this is my Tiffany's. The staff was so helpful and not intimidating. They are excited to make recommendations and give samples. First trip here, dragged Mr. Frozen French bread Pizza with me and even he was impressed. Will definitely stop by any time I'm in Cambridge and will spread the word. read more

Great service and great selection!! People have reason to be snooty there but aren't - they are knowledgeable and helpful! And wanted to sing praise since I went there with a broken finger when they were busy and they took a moment and cut my loaf of bread for me as though it was no problem at all. And this was just after the people at Hi Rise Bakery (where it wasn't even busy) refused snootily! (I usually go to Formaggio but it was raining, my hand hurt and Hi Rise was closer...but I knew the moment they said "no" that I could count on Formaggio's!) read more

So a long time ago Julia Child used to live in Cambridge - I can totally picture her walking around this joint ooohing and aaaaahing and tasting the wonderfulness of this place! What a wonderful selection of cheese, condiments, chocolates, charcuterie, bread - and they have this fantastic ice cream, essentially a butter pecan made with sea salt - so freaking delicious. I LOVE THIS PLACE! read more

So good and very expensive. You could spend a good amount of time just discovering new things - raisins on the vine, gooseberries, sheep's milk cheese. There is a full range of curated products - cheeses, meats, canned goods, fresh produce, flowers, frozen foods, beer and wine. The place is small and packed. Might not be the best place to do your daily grocery shopping but definitely great if you are looking for something special. read more

I've only been to FK once and still daydream about the place. From the interesting wine selection and wide variety of cheeses and cured meats to the sandwiches piled high in the corner... I think I need to go back this weekend! read more

A+ for selection- huge array of gourmet products, including breads, desserts, cheese, charcuterie, produce, etc. I would come back to put together a cute foodie gift for a friend's birthday or special occasion, or to get items for a nice picnic for myself and my husband. I would not come back for shopping. Their prices are way higher than Whole Foods, which is itself a pricy store. I had difficulty finding even a small chunk of cheese that was less than $9, to give context. The quality of everything was high, but at these prices it better be! read more

Tried the 1/2 grilled chicken, the small lamb sammi and the large beef sammi at the Sat BBQ.The small sammi is already huge, so my advice is to stick to the small. The large comes with a focaccia sandwich instead of brioche bun. They put a lot of sauce on the sandwich which made them too soggy, even though we are them right away. I liked the lamb sandwich but my husband didn't like his beef brisket-like sandwich. The grilled chicken was good but we couldn't really tell the difference between that and the rotisserie chicken from Shaws. Prices are expensive. $10 for small lamb sandwich. $10 for half chicken and $11 for large beef sandwich. For the price, I think the food is a little overrated. Lines were quite long too. read more

See all

The summer saturday sidewalk BBQ at this place was very good! Honestly, I'm a pretty big snob about BBQ in the Northeast, but this place was legit. My friends and I ordered in advance the regular ribs, Texas style beef ribs, cornbread, coleslaw, and baked beans. A warning for those who are considering the reservation path: you have to reheat the food and can't simply eat at the establishment. So for those who want to eat close by, you'll have to wait in a formidable line. The ribs were excellent; very fall-off-the-bone and the sauce was decent. The rest of the BBQ was of average quality, but that certainly wasn't the reason we were going in the first place. I will definitely be going a few more times for the BBQ this summer. However, I can't speak for the wine & cheese & meats available in the store: I just don't have the money to be dishing out over $15/lb. read more

Where else am I going to find someone who won't let me leave without trying 10+ kinds of goat cheese??! Cheese aside though, this is still the store I will miss most after leaving Cambridge post-graduation and the kind of place I really hope to find everywhere else I live in the future but am not sure I will. Maybe I only go when the weather is nice or when I'm already having a good day, but walking back down to Harvard Square toting a FK brown bag and nibbling on its contents as I go will definitely be one of my most quintessential Cantabrigian memories. Yes yes things can be crazy expensive ($13 gelato, $10 chocolate bars). Until you have the means to fully release your inner gourmand, just limit yourself to one new discovery/splurge at a time! EVERYTHING I've bought has been good to great to awesome. read more

Amazing place. Heaven for wine and cheese lovers. This is the only place in Boston where I've been able to find my favorite cider (Eden Barrel Aged Northern Spy Ice Cider). There are always nice little surprises and discoveries every time I come here. The best part is that you can almost sample everything for free, from cheeses to wines to fois gras. read more

I took a Cheese 101 class recently and the night was fun with a lot of quality details. We tried a delicious and varied amount of cheeses, sampled two very tasty wines (and thoughtful pairings), and were told sweet anecdotes about the history and findings of all types of cheeses. The instructors and staff were knowledgable and considerate, engaging and attentive. I've shopped here for honey and cheese before a few times and have gotten excellent suggestions from all who have helped me. The staff are always relaxed and really willing to share their knowledge and opinion without snobbery or impatience. Trying actively to effectively double my food budget so I can shop more often... Much appreciated! read more

I first came for the Jamón ibérico (they have the authentic stuff here) and kept coming back for the wide variety of imported cheeses, and the Jamón of course. Formaggio Kitchen has become a weekly ritual for my wife and I because the deli counter is second to none. The staff is friendly and knowledgeable and will let you sample the goods before you buy it. I can only comment on their meats and cheeses because that is all we have gotten so far but that alone is reason enough to sing the praises of this little gem. read more

If Julia Child is in heaven--and I hope she is--I trust that she has found a way to continue getting her cheeses from Formaggio Kitchen.

I love this place! A little pricey and hours could be better! Great wine, and of course cheese selection. Their cookies are my favorite!