Posted by Corey Mintz in cheese and dairy, cheesemongers, ingredients, shops on May 12, 2007 at 9:37 am

Global Cheese
76 Kensington Avenue
415-593-9251

When I was twenty and still throwing my garbage off the balcony, my room-mate Max and I made our first trip to the grocery store together. We were young and poor and uneducated. He picked up a piece of havarti and exclaimed, “Wow, cheese is expensive!” and I didn’t really keep cheese in the house for the next five years. Then I found Global Cheese. Now I believe that cheese might release endorphins or make me a little high because if my stock runs down to one piece of cheese I start detoxing (dear dairy industry, I am not actually claiming that cheese is a narcotic).

No disrespect to Cheese Magic which, as my pal Natalie puts it, has the cutest boys, or Cheese Boutique which imports price-prohibitive rounds of artisanal cheese, but Global has the best selection, prices, and service.

When I walk into Global I’m welcomed by the intoxicating fragrance. Disembodied calls of “Who’s next!?” emanate from behind Olympian towers of cheese. Short people like me go by sound, but fully-grown adults can look the clerks in the eye. If they know the customer they are all business. Getting regulars efficiently turned over is a priority. Last summer I was stuffing taleggio (a sweet, creamy cheese from Lombardy, $3.80/100g) inside medjool dates for work. I came once a week for a half pound and never had to wait. What makes Global special is they way the staff (some have been there since the late sixties) treat clients like guests. Everyone who walks into the shop finds a slicer extended over the cheese wall with a sample, an explanation, and a price (eg. Frank’s raspy Portuguese drawl, “That’s a 3-year old cheddar from Quebec, nice and sharp, $1.79 for a hundred grams, you can’t beat that.”)

Canada’s ill-conceived attempt to legislate a ban on raw cheeses (made with unpasteurised milk) created an unintentional hype for the products and Global began carrying gems like brie de meaux ($3.30/100g) and blue de verne ($2.49/100g). A few months ago they began importing buffalo mozzarella from Campana. It’s purchased in bulk instead of the exorbitant little individual packages and they sell these creamy orbs of amazingness for the unbelievable price of $3.99 a ball (meaning a sphere, not street talk for an eighth of an ounce).

One quarter of the shop is dedicated to accoutrements to help us get our cheese on: Smoked salmon and mackerel, mountains of olives (spiced green olives stuffed with garlic, pimento, or almond are a crowd favourite), artichokes, pickled herring, truffle paste, fresh peanut butter, crackers, olive oil, mustards. If I’m having people over it’s a necessity to stop at Global.

Without a formal queue the cheesologists in white lab-coats manage to assist each customer in turn (thanks to our Torontonian sense of fairness and civility). They spend time to make sure the client samples whatever cheeses they are curious about, while making suggestions (on a recent trip Jennifer showed me a Guinness-infused Irish porter, sort of a mild chedderish cheese with a hint of stout, $3.70/100g) and even catering to the demands of the eccentric lady with the eyeliner above her eyebrows who comes in for an individual slice of havarti. On weekends the market is a madhouse of tourists and there’s always a 905 child squawking that it smells bad in the cheese shop (dear suburban parents, I don’t walk through your neighbourhood and comment that it smells like Lysol and dead relationships {alternative—“hollow relationships built on real estate acquisition"}).

When visitors to our city ask me if they should go to the CN tower or the Hockey Hall of Fame I take them straight to Global Cheese. If they are not interested then we really have nothing in common, they’re dead to me, and they can stick to their over-priced, under-flavoured Cracker Barrel. To me Global is Toronto.