Stroh's Gourmet

Parking: Street
Take Out, People Watching Cozy, Laid Back Casual Deli, Cafe / Coffee House Quiet All Ages Pets Allowed, Outdoor Seating

Update: Stroh's Gourmet closed in September of 2008.

A couple of blocks up Abbot Kinney Boulevard from Venice's gourmet ghetto, Jason Stroh has opened a tiny cheese shop and grocery. The next time you're headed out to the beach or marina, it's worth keeping Stroh's Gourmet in mind, because this is prime picnic pickings.

Straight ahead when you walk in is a case displaying rows of sandwiches on crusty La Brea Bakery bread, as enticing as any on show at stops along an Italian autostrada. And they're made with top-notch ingredients. There are Black Forest ham piled with roasted red peppers and mozzarella, grilled chicken sandwiches with sautéed onions and mushrooms, a Cuban sandwich toasted in the panini press, and the ever-popular turkey, avocado and Brie. The selection changes all the time. Don't miss the delicious mini-meatball sandwiches: They'll stave off hunger while you're searching out that perfect Malibu picnic spot.

Stroh, who used to work at a Cambridge, Mass., cheese shop with its own aging cellars, is a cheese fanatic. There's no question that he'll let you taste before you buy from his wonderful, well-edited cheese selection, mainly raw-milk, single-farm cheeses from France, Italy, Spain and America.

It changes from week to week. A recent selection included a creamy, complex St. Augur, a farmhouse Manchego, a slab of Corsican Brin d'Amour aromatic with wild herbs and a gloriously runny Petit-Livarot from Normandy that begged to be eaten that day. Right now he has a marvelous raw-milk organic Parmigiano-Reggiano aged three years (going on four) and a nutty Pecorino wrapped in walnut leaves that's ideal for finishing off that bottle of Barbaresco or Sangiovese after dinner.

He's beginning to expand his selection of American farmhouse cheeses. One recent arrival from Massachusetts is a Berkshire Blue made from the raw milk of Jersey cows.

Exploring the rest of this tiny shop can be dangerous. Somehow, without noticing, you've added French caramels salted with fleur de sel, a jug of real maple syrup, a tin of cocoa powder and hand-rolled pancetta for the pantry. Oh, yes, and some Finocchiona: fat, Tuscan-style salami laced with fennel.

A wonderful addition to the neighborhood.

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