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Welcome to Classic & Curious! A podcast dedicated to exploring today’s classic-styled life.
Each month, we’ll be sharing conversations with some of our favorite personalities in travel, entertaining, fashion and interior design. We’ll discuss how they elevate their everyday with timeless classics – reimagined with a modern sensibility.
So grab a cup of coffee or glass of wine, whatever suits your fancy. We hope to inspire you, make you laugh a little and look forward to every engagement.
Cheers!
Welcome to Classic and Curious, a podcast dedicated to exploring today's classic style of life. I'm your host, Anne Kikosky. And each month, I'll be sharing conversations with some of my favorite personalities in travel, entertaining, fashion, and decor. We will explore how they elevate their everyday with timeless classics reimagined with a modern sensibility. So grab a cup of coffee or glass of wine, whatever suits your fancy.
Anne:We hope to inspire you, make you laugh a little, and look forward to every engagement. Hello to all of the classic and curious listeners. Curiosity serves us in so many ways. For this episode, it will have your mind wondering, what haven't I tried yet? I'm honored to host Julia Hallman, owner of Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Anne:Formaggio Kitchen is a gourmet food shop dedicated to discovering and providing the finest artisan cheeses and specialty foods available domestically and abroad. Featured in wine enthusiasts as one of the most iconic cheese shops in America, once you explore their assortment, you will understand why their reputation exists. What makes this boutique shop so unique is their assortment of specialty foods that when combined with their cheese collection, enables you to bring something very special to entertaining in your home. I love to surprise and delight when I entertain. Formaggio allows me to create an expression of my own personal taste while introducing a new element for my guests to try.
Anne:In this episode, Julia shares with us Fermaggio's story, their caretakers mentality, and how they have made their offerings accessible for all. Financial Times ranks for MAGIO in the top 50 food shops in the world. I think you will know why after listening. Cheers to Julia. Let's chat.
Anne:Classic and curious listeners. It's a beautiful day in Boston, and I hope it's a beautiful day where you are. Entertaining in one's home has been a timeless event and passion for centuries. And one of the things that I love to do is find accessible brands that help me bring that to life in a very easy and unique way. It's a passion of mine.
Anne:I am lucky enough to share on this episode one of my favorite brands to help me do that. As with every episode, I love to tell how a brand found their way into my classic styled life. So as it relates to Formaggio, I guess you could say it happened one night, or perhaps I say it happened one eve. A simple stroll on the way back from a client's home, I discovered a quaint little store named Formaggio. I looked at it and said, this should be good.
Anne:The name alone had me at hello. So I walked into the store, grabbed my basket, and I was in awe. In fact, I walked around for 30 minutes with an empty basket because I was just taken over by all of the beautiful offerings that they had. I did not even know where to begin. Well, certainly, I began at the cheese counter for sure.
Anne:So fast forward after my 30 minutes, I filled my basket, and I left with a little Pardue Barbet. And my French is always terrible, so let's just laugh at that. I left with a cherry jam, a bottle of Bordeaux. They had one of my favorite distributors, Kermit Lynch, so I grabbed a bottle of his Beaujolais, grabbed a French baguette. I took their homemade pimento cheese, and I found ginger cookies, which is my weakness on the way out.
Anne:I was so excited that when I turned my head, I saw they also carried Lieber and Company, which are syrups if any of you are at home mixologists. I got so excited. I snapped pictures for my husband. That was the beginning of my love story. This is not just a little market.
Anne:It's so much more. When I got home to show my husband, we pulled up the website, and I will tell you it has become my gift of choice. So I have to share with all of you my love for Formaggio, And with me today is the owner of Formaggio Stores in Boston, Julia. Julia, we're so happy to have you with us.
Julia:Thank you so much for having me.
Anne:So I thought we would start with introducing the listeners to the story of Formaggio, and then perhaps maybe your story and how you were connected to the brand.
Julia:That sounds fantastic. So the story of Vermaggio actually begins over 45 years ago as a little specialty food market in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And it kind of set up its little footprint in Cambridge, just outside of Harvard Square. And over the years, it grew and grew into I like to think of it as its own unique being, its own thing. It has a personality and a life of its own.
Julia:And the previous owner to me, Ihsan, was my mentor and he's the one who really directed the vision of the store into a specialty food playground, I think, is the best way to describe it because through his travels extensively throughout Europe, he found that a lot of those products that he fell in love with in Europe were just not accessible in the United States, and he wanted to change that. And so over the years, he developed relationships and connections with producers and began importing all of these items into a little store in West Cambridge. And that really was how it began and telling a story and providing that experience that you get when you travel to a new place and you're overwhelmed by the incredible food that you're discovering, we really wanted to create that in Cambridge so that you could have that on a Tuesday night. And we've never really lost that passion for telling a story with the products that we have on our shelves, the cheeses that we have on our counter, and we go overboard and rightfully so because there's so much incredible food out there. We have anywhere between 200 to 300 different cheeses at a given time.
Julia:And so for me, it was a natural connection. I came out to the Boston area for college, and I grew up on a small farm in Eastern Oregon where we grew everything ourselves. We fished in the backyard. We really were self sustaining. And when I came out for college, I felt a disconnect with my food.
Julia:I mean, as you would expect when you go into a dining hall. And I didn't realize how important food was to me because it was such a natural part of my childhood, making blackberry jam with my mom and my sister because we had acres of blackberry bushes. And so it was a really special moment when I first shopped at Formaggio Kitchen. The cheese smoker who helped me was Robert. I still remember his name, and I still remember that experience because I was a college student with not a very big budget, and he really walked me through the selection and gave me samples of dozens of different cheeses.
Julia:He talked about the farmers. He talked about the cheese makers, and I basically fell head over heels in love. And I just was so passionate about learning more and became a regular customer there in college. And fast forward, I got my degree in public health and was starting my career and was back in Boston and needed a quick job while I got my feet on the ground. And I thought, I loved shopping at Formaggio Kitchen when I was here.
Julia:Why don't I apply for a job there? And it was meant to be a 3 month seasonal position, and that was 16 years ago. And so I started out mopping the floors and selling cookies at the cookie counter, and I just I got bit by the bug. I fell in love. And the amount that I was able to learn, I said to myself, if I'm bored, then I'll move on.
Julia:I'll go back to public health, and I'll continue my career. And I never got bored. And probably about 5 years into my job at Fromageo Kitchen, I realized, okay, this might be a career. And I started buying internationally for the store and started traveling internationally for the store and seeking out those producers and those products and telling my own story through the products that I got to import and bring in. And then in late 2022, I became the new owner, which for me was just really special because I just, more than anything, wanna continue the legacy that was started before me because I think it's such a special thing and such a rare thing that we're able to provide.
Anne:I think so too. And what a beautiful story. And I always believe in fate. You know, as I was listening to you, there was something that was meant to be for you. And how lucky for you because you've taken this journey through that, and now as an owner can appreciate all ends of the people that you work with.
Anne:I love that. I will say when I walk into Formaggio even to this day, I can see Italy. I can see Belgium. I can see France. I can see all parts of the countries under this one little roof.
Anne:And so for me, when I think about your assortment and the breadth of it, there's also a specialness to it, and you can definitely see the artists in nature sitting on the shelves. Talk to me a little bit about what you look for when sourcing and how do you make your selections?
Julia:That's a great question. And what we look for is really a small producer, someone who represents the region in which they are in. What we really wanna do at Formaggio Kitchen, I always like to say that we curate a selection because in so many ways, that's what we're doing. We're telling a story about the selections that we carry, and it's very important that every single product in our store has a reason for being there and a story as to why it's there. And so our goal is to transport our customers to the countries where the products were made, to tell the story behind the producers who made them.
Julia:And so the selection begins with exactly that. It begins with us traveling and having that experience going to Provence and driving through the fields and pulling aside when you reach a little farm stand and seeing little jars of honey that are beautiful and talking to the beekeeper and learning their story and then developing that relationship and helping them to import or export, in their case, to the United States for the first time. And so our selection is very organic and natural. We really don't often go into things or trips with sort of an intent of, oh, we really need this, or we really wanna bring in this. We let the product speak to us and the producers speak to us.
Julia:If something moves us, then we import it and we wanna bring it in if at all possible. And that's really important to our sort of brand in as a whole because it's incredibly natural and honest because we're really only bringing in things that we're really passionate about. And so it just makes it so much easier to share that with the public because they're such exceptional products, and we are eager to tell the stories behind them.
Anne:You know, it's funny. Previously, when we had a a little chat prior to this episode, you talked a lot about a caretaker's role. When you bring it into your store and you feel like this utter responsibility then to the products and the people because it does become an individual passion as much as it is the product's passion because you know, the name and face behind that label on the jar. So talk to me a little bit about the product is in your store. What does that caretaker's role then start to evolve to?
Anne:How does that look?
Julia:So that's really important to us because when you work with such tiny producers, you realize the love and the passion and beyond that, the work that goes into making every single product. And I think it's very easy to go into a big grocery store and forget that and not see because we're so used to these large brands and warehouses and factories, and that's not us at all. And so we really have to push hard to tell the stories behind these producers. And being a caretaker, really, for us, that sort of concept started on the cheese counter because cheese, as you know, is a living, breathing thing. It's constantly evolving.
Julia:You have to baby it. You have to take care of it. And so we actually became
Anne:part of
Julia:the legacy of from Agio Kitchen was being the 1st retail store in the United States to have a cheese cave below the store. And so for us, that enabled us the opportunity to care for the cheeses better because a cave is a slightly warmer temperature than a refrigerator and much, much, much more humid. So the cheeses are not just sitting there drying out, they're thriving, and they're actually in the environment that they're meant to be in to continue to age and develop. And so for us, that was incredibly important to pay homage to these cheese makers who, in many cases, are raising the animals themselves, milking them, making the cheese, aging the cheese, and then sending them to us. And what a disservice it would be to then put it in the wrong environment and not have our guests be able to taste them as they were meant to be tasted.
Julia:As we remember tasting them when we're in France or Switzerland or Italy. So that's incredibly important to us and for our cheesemongers in particular, knowing that every piece of cheese, whether it's a quarter pound piece of cheese in their hand or an 80 pound wheel, so much work went into that. And to respect the work that went into that and to really cherish and honor that. And what we do with our cheese mongers is we bring them on visits to farms. We bring producers into the store to tell their story because I think that really helps to translate why these products are so beautiful and so incredible, and it helps to develop sort of the idea behind what it means to be a caretaker.
Julia:We're not salespeople. We really are caring for these cheeses, looking after them, and hopefully finding good homes for them. And I know that sounds over the top, but it's a passion project. And if you have ever made cheese before, seen it made, oh my gosh, it's backbreaking and you have to love it to do it. And these producers deserve every ounce of respect that we can give them.
Anne:And I love that because I do think part of the caretaking is what you said about taking care of the product so that it can be appreciated for the best expression that it can give someone. And lucky for you, having the caves really takes that to the next level. But the other thing that I really appreciate, and for the listeners, Formaggio's web site does a beautiful job of storytelling about the cheese. And I think that's one thing that you can appreciate is not just the caretaker is within the market or the store, the caretaker you see the attention to detail online as well, so you have to take a look at it. But I think what I appreciate is even standing at the cheese corner.
Anne:A lot of times, I will say to someone, I have a taste for this, and I'll describe what my taste buds want. And boy, oh, boy, does that open a conversation. So when I leave, I'm leaving going home telling that conversation to someone in my home. So I thought before we jump into culinary experiences, I think we're in a perfect place to unpack cheese a little bit deeper for the listeners because I think this is so fun. Let's talk cheese for a little bit.
Anne:So sheep, goat, cow, that's usually how most people think of it. I'm sitting here, and a lot of times, I will look at a website or I will go into a store, and I get overwhelmed. I don't know where to begin. So tell us Julia, what are some of your favorites that you would love to share that people may want to discover?
Julia:Absolutely. And I think the world of cheese can be really overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. And I think the key is to try new things. Ideally, if you're in a shop where there are folks behind the counter asking their opinion about what they're loving at the moment is really important and critical because, as I said before, cheese is a living, breathing thing. When you work with small producers, different batches taste differently.
Julia:Is it summer's milk? Is it winter's milk? The cows are or goats or sheep are eating different things depending on the season, so it actually really influences the flavor of the cheese. So having those conversations are really important to have with your cheesemonger because they are as passionate about finding you an amazing incredible cheese that as you are. And so for me, I do tend to love sheep's milk cheeses.
Julia:One of my favorites is actually the one that you already referenced, which is Pardu Ardigasna, which is a sheep's milk cheese from the Pyrenees. And sheep's milk cheeses, I adore because they pair so nicely with wine. They are really probably the most palatable cheese with a wide variety of wines because of the 3 major milk types, cow, sheep, and goat, sheep's milk has the highest fat content. So imagine a blanket sort of coating your palate of rich, creamy, fattiness, even if it's a hard cheese. That richness of that cheese is just the perfect vehicle to enjoy a wine and to allow the wine to really shine.
Julia:And so that's why it's always a go to for me, but I'm a seasonal cheese eater. In the wintertime, I like the stronger, more pungent cheeses. I always like the vision of curling up in front of a fireplace with a warm blanket, and if a cheese makes me feel like that, then that's the ticket in a Boston winter. Summertime, I love goat cheeses. We get beautiful goat cheeses from the Loire Valley in France.
Julia:My all time favorite is probably the motet sur Foy, and it just sits on a little chestnut leaf. It has a beautiful rind, a slightly creamy interior, and it's just so bright and clean and fresh on a hot day. And so for me, cheese is a mood more than anything, and so I always love to experiment and try different cheeses because I'm always shocked to discover new combinations, new flavor profiles, and the cheeses all tell a story. And so that's for me the part that never gets old and never gets boring is constantly exploring the selection and reexploring the selection. I eat a lot of cheese as cow.
Anne:And so do I. And it's so funny because when I was listening to you, I do think cheese is a mood, just like wine is a mood. And both can be just both can be enjoyed all year round, and seasonally, it plays to your palate. And I know when I entertain, I will do a board separate for each type, sheep, goat, cow, so that people can really indulge with whatever could be paired next to them. As deliberate as putting the wine next to the board so that it really becomes this fabulous experience.
Anne:And, yes, we're heading into when you mentioned goat, all I could think of was a poulet, fumet, or a sancier, and it's that season where I get into that mood a little bit more so than the rest. I mean, I love a good Bordeaux. No no doubt about it. And, you know, put that with a sheep cheese, and you have me at hello. And isn't it something about sheep?
Anne:Isn't it something about the butterfat is more in a sheep? Correct? Is that why? Exactly. So it's like the heaviness of the cheese pairs off against the heaviness of the wine.
Anne:So the deeper the cheese, the deeper the wine, or the more robust would probably be a way to explain it. So let's talk a little bit about culinary experience because that is kind of a a term that's coined a lot lately. When I think about, you were just talking about a palate and what's personal to you, and I do think a culinary palate is personal to everyone. But when I think about a culinary experience, there are people that like the same thing over and over again. And you know what?
Anne:With all due respect to each their own. But then I always say in my same breath, you don't earn the right to say it's the best then. So if you don't try new things, you can't say this is the best restaurant or they're the best because you go to the same place. So culinary experience to me, and I think at Formaggio Kitchen really is the playground for a culinary experience. So what does a culinary experience mean to you?
Julia:Yeah. I mean, for me, that's a heavy question in a lot of ways because it means so much. Culinary experience, a lot of people when they find out what I do for a living ask, did you have training for that? Did you go to school for that? And I said, I ate a lot of cheese.
Julia:I ate a lot of food. And to me, that is culinary experience is trying things and challenging yourself to try different things because we do love to fall back into the things that we know and love. But pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone slightly to be able to experience new foods, new products, new pairings. I think each time you do that, it opens the door to learning more and more. And what I found is my culinary education was bit by bit and bite by bite, to be honest.
Julia:Because as I enjoyed things, I dug in and I wanted to learn about them and I had the flavors in my mouth as I was reading about the cheese or about the wine or about the jam and learning more and more about what I was enjoying. And it became integrated, that education, into my taste memory. And that's how I was able to develop sort of a vocabulary behind what I was tasting and a little bit more of the sort of educational background of what I was enjoying. But then I took it a step further because when I travel for work, it's very similar to how I travel for fun, which is exploration. It's about walking and finding that little shop or that little restaurant or that little cafe talking to people, talking to the people who work there, asking what they love.
Julia:Is there anything locally that they should see? Do you have any markets that you recommend? The best finds I've ever found, both personally and professionally, have been from just those casual conversations because the more you dig in, the more you realize the majority of people are obsessed with food, and they just want to share what they love with you. And so all you have to do is be an avid listener and to take that first step to ask the question, And that will take you on a culinary adventure no matter where you are in the world. And to me, that is a culinary experience right there.
Julia:But then beyond that, you can do that in your own hometown. You can learn more. You can go to farm stands. You can talk to producers. If you start digging just the tiniest bit, you'll be absolutely amazed at what you can uncover just around your own area.
Anne:I agree.
Julia:And so that's my personal opinion on it. There's so many different levels to what a culinary experience can mean, whether it's a cheese plate and how you learn about what's on it versus traveling the world. And so but the main key takeaway is that passion to dig in more and explore more, whether educationally or quite literally.
Anne:I couldn't agree more. I think the one thing that's really important about a culinary experience. It's not time bound. When I think a little bit about my own personal curiosity towards food or personal curiosity towards wine and trying different things. That happened later for me.
Anne:That happened after I was 40 and it kind of went parallel to how I looked at experiences at the same time. As my travel increased, my culinary experience increased. As my maturity around wanting to learn more, and that's not to say I wasn't mature in my twenties thirties, but it's to say it shifted. It was a pivot for me, and I fell in love with it and probably more so through wine and through friendships. And so it's never too late as people listen to this podcast.
Anne:There's no age that says, I don't need to learn that. You can be in your eighties and discovering new cheeses, new wines, new charcuterie, anything that really will open up your palate and taste buds evolve too. I remember the days where I could not stand caviar. And now put a little dollop of caviar on something, and I wanna hug you. I think it's really important.
Anne:And to your point, it's such a broad term, and we could go on a whole episode on culinary experience. But I bring it up intentionally because I think it's such a great transition to our next part of the conversation when we start to talk about accessibility and what Formaggio Kitchen has to offer the listeners, because it's not just a market. It truly is an experience, and it's a way to have a culinary experience. If you don't live in Boston, and let's say you're in Chicago and you go on their website, you will see that it's a way to bring a culinary experience into your home. So let's talk about that because that's what I get so excited about.
Anne:It's the accessibility of this brand beyond Boston. So tell us a little bit about all your offerings, Julia, that you started to create so that people could learn from Maggio from afar.
Julia:Perfect. Thank you. One of my passions, and I think this stemmed from me growing up in a small town, was I always appreciated and loved the customer experience and customer service that you received in our brick and mortar shops. And when I became the new owner, I said to myself, how do I give people this experience if they live in Chicago, if they live in Florida, if they live in California, Oregon, wherever. And that became really important to me.
Julia:And I realized that FaceTime is everything, and it's so incredibly valuable. And so one of my favorite offerings that we just started creating is Voyage Fromage, our cheese club and experience. And so we really wanted to create a cheese club that was more than just receiving some cheeses with a piece of paper and a few pairings and that's it. And you figure it out on your own because there are so many stories behind these cheeses. You can see I'm bursting at the seams.
Julia:Like, I I want to tell these stories because they're so important, and it's so difficult to do that on paper. And talking and tasting with the customer is so valid. When I work on the cheese counter, which I still do because I can't help myself, I taste with the customers because, like I said, cheeses are changing and evolving and developing and I wanna taste what you're tasting. And so part of our cheese club is a virtual experience every month and because of the close connections that we have with our producers and cheese agers internationally, we're often able to not only tell the story from our perspective, but tell it from theirs. So for example, next month in April, we're featuring Cheeses of the British Isles, and we're gonna have a live tour of the cheese caves at Neil's Yard Dairy in London.
Julia:And so experiences like that where if you can't travel to London, and oftentimes you can't as a tourist visit some of these places, I wanted to make it as accessible as possible to our audience to feel like they had the same experience that I have. When I'm going to Europe to select our holiday cheeses, that's a breathtaking experience, and I don't wanna Bogart that all for myself. I wanna share that experience and have other people, even if it's virtual, be able to kind of take part in that and enjoy that. And so that's a really exciting thing that we're doing with Voyage Fromage. Beyond that, I think our gifts are probably our most popular items on our website because each of them tends to tell a story.
Julia:We really love to tell stories as you can see, and that it totally extends to our gifts. And so whether it's a taste of Italy or a taste of France or if you want to do the cheese gourmand bundle or the cheese monger bundle so that you can get a full range of different cheeses with textures, milk types, make types, regions. We really try to lay out the materials for you to send a story with the gift that you're providing. And, of course, it's a small team and we like to hand cut all the cheeses to order. And we put a lot of care into everything that we pack and ship because it's just so important to us, whether you're in the store or in Idaho, to be able to receive the cheeses in pristine condition.
Julia:And then last but not least is another really fun thing that I've started doing is more virtual event. So we found during the pandemic that a lot of people really were eager to do team building and connecting online. And for me personally, with my family all living on the West Coast, I started doing that with them. I would ship them bundles of cheese, and we'd all get online together, and we would Zoom together and eat. And there was something just special about the fact that we're all enjoying the same thing and talking about it.
Julia:And so we really we turned that into a virtual event option for folks where we can ship the same bundle all across the US because so many people are living all over the place but have a connection for some reason or another. And then as a facilitator, I can bring folks together and talk about what they're enjoying and dig into the stories behind it and have a more personalized option for folks who are interested in that.
Anne:I love that because your virtual events are on your website. And I was just thinking because you gave me a little bit of a brainstorm. I have friends in Chicago and San Francisco, and what a fun way to get us all together is to sign up for one of the events. I love that idea. I think it's really important too, as Julia mentioned the bundles, when she mentioned the cheeses, there's also on their website pasta bundles and crowd pleasers, and it goes beyond just cheese.
Anne:If you think of the extension of this brand listeners, the voyage offering, I mean, I'm definitely gonna sign up for the whole British because of my heritage. But I think at the end of the day, just having accessibility to all the it's a way to travel the world. Think about that. It's a way to travel the world without leaving your home. And I think that is a culinary experience just back to what we just talked about.
Anne:So I just can't say enough to the listeners. I am a very picky gift giver. I always like to think about the person I'm buying a gift for and what haven't they received before. And this is a sweet spot for me. So it's just such a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Anne:And Bostonians, if you're listening, their local events are just amazing, and there's some great ones coming up for the spring. So can't thank you enough for sharing all of your knowledge, and I feel like we only hit a little, little corner of your mind. So all the more reason for people to jump on your website and to explore more. But we're at a part of the episode where we connect every single guest with their classic soul. So let's start with who has influenced your style the most, Julia?
Julia:Gosh. That's a really tough one, but I think that influencing my style the most has been my mom. And maybe that's cliche, but she's shaped so much of me in not only how I keep my home, how I dress. So we're the same size, so we often would share clothes. We travel together, but her personality and she was always a pioneer in our small rural town really knocking down barriers that were it was she didn't even see the barriers.
Julia:So she just overtook them. And for me, that was always really important to emulate, and I think I just sort of love every aspect of what she represents and that comes through both in her personality and her style. And so, yeah, I I gotta say it.
Anne:Yeah. That's great. So if Julia's mom is listening, thank you for giving us her because she's created such an amazing brand. What is your favorite classic item in your closet?
Julia:My favorite classic item in my closet is I'm wearing it. It's an oversized cashmere sweater. And as you could hear from my stories, I love being warm and cozy, and it's yeah. That's gotta be it.
Anne:That's great. Do you have a favorite classic cocktail?
Julia:Absolutely. I am a soccer for a sidecar.
Anne:Love that.
Julia:I love I just it just hits right.
Anne:I know. You know, and it's a funny I have to kinda give another little thing. I mentioned earlier about mixology. If you love cheese and you love to entertain, you do love to kind of step up your game in regards to cocktails. You have the best bitters and that Lieber and company have the best syrups.
Anne:Everybody has to kinda take a peek at that. So, okay, I diverted. Sorry. Most memorable dining experience?
Julia:That's actually an easy one. I was traveling in Japan with my husband, and we flew to Tokyo and arrived at 4 PM. And so we were so tired after a 13 hour flight and went to our Airbnb in Ginza and thought, let's just get a quick bite and go to bed. Like, we're exhausted. We need to eat.
Julia:And, again, being an explorer, right below our apartment was a little restaurant. And I poked my head in, and I didn't realize at the time that the curtains being closed meant they were full for the night. And they were very apologetic and, like, oh, I'm so sorry. We don't have any tables. So I backed out and bowed and was apologetic for interrupting the meal.
Julia:And they came out and said, actually, we will have a table available in 15 minutes if you can wait. We're so sorry you have to wait. So apologetic and so kind. And it was our first time in Tokyo, and we realized that a date had gone poorly. And so the date left quite hurriedly, and we got their seats.
Julia:And we sat down, and we had no idea what type of food it was. We had no idea what we were walking into, and it turned out to be a 18 to 20 course sushi, Omakase.
Anne:Oh, wow.
Julia:And what we found out later because we were sitting around, there were only 8 seats at the bar, and we just were in sushi heaven
Anne:Oh my gosh.
Julia:And enjoying. And the sushi just kept coming and coming. And the folks sitting next to us said, how did you get in here? And they said, you can't get a reservation here. And we realized at the end, before you leave, they come around with a leather bound ledger to set up your next reservation.
Julia:And that's how they do the reservations. And so the fact that we got a seat at that table, and it's considered one of the best sushi restaurants in Tokyo. And we just stumbled upon it because I poked my head into the curtain. And thank goodness. I mean, I feel bad for that poor young couple that had a terrible date, but we definitely reap the benefits.
Julia:And so that was just so unintentional and memorable that I don't know if anything will top that. It was incredible.
Anne:It was meant to be. It is. It was. It remembers from beyond the food and the palate. Yes.
Anne:So favorite destination for travel?
Julia:That's really hard. I do have to say I'd say Tokyo is up there as one of my all time favorites, but also Provence because I'm a very independent traveler and I love having a car to be able to drive around and have that control to be able to see what I wanna see and go where I wanna go. And Provence is just so lovely, and the food is unreal at both places. Obviously, they're 2 of my favorite food destinations. And for me, that is a favorite destination because if the food is good, then I'm there.
Anne:Exactly. And a nice little wine there too. I'm sure.
Julia:Oh, absolutely.
Anne:Especially their roses. Thank you so much. You know, the listeners are probably are going to be jumping on your website right after they listen to this. This is one of the best discoveries that I've made since moving to the East Coast. I would make this my number one discovery, in all honesty.
Anne:I love your brand. And it Thank you. You know what? And I love all the memories that I create with my friends and family with it. Thank you for allowing me to bring your brand into my home.
Anne:So keep doing it, Julia. You're creating something so beautiful and so memorable. So thank you, and thank you for being on today.
Julia:Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it.
Anne:Sure thing. Take care. Thank you for listening to this episode of Classic and Curious. You can find Formaggio Kitchen on Instagram at f ormagio kitchen, and be sure to shop their site at firmaggio kitchen.com. Take a peek at the classic and curious podcast page on styledbyark.com to find a listing of all of my favorite selections and gift ideas.
Anne:Of course, we invite you to hit the subscribe button and share your feedback along the way. Looking forward to our next time together. Tata for now.