Any reports from the new location? I really want to check it out, but I don’t have wheels these days and that makes it a trek. I’ve seen some photos that make it look nice and expansive (i also know it’s always expensive!). I think I’ll miss the old location some because it’s what I associate with this place, but I won’t miss having nowhere to stand when you’re buying mimolette and rabbit pate and some poor sap just wants to get to the shelves behind you.
Anyone?
Want. I’m reading in Eater Boston that Formaggio’s new location, in the former Fresh Pond Market, has twice the space.
I’m waiting to pay a visit until I’m no longer limiting myself to just the most essential visits inside stores. Something to look forward to.
FWIW, I have ordered from Formaggio online a couple of times to source a few things like fancier olive oil we like for salad, special dried pastas, and some Rancho Gordo beans. It’s been nice to have a few special items now and then to brighten up my cooking routine.
I’ve also had good luck ordering from Formaggio Cambridge and South End online for delivery through Mercato for some special items. I’m looking forward to visiting the new location. We finally got our first vaccinations a week ago. I did go indoors at the old location once and they had strict limits on occupancy and lots of precautions and it felt fairly safe then. The extra space will make it easier to really peruse the shelves and find more specialty items to buy (it’s at most a twice a year indulgence for me.)
Yay for you on getting your first vaccine jab!
The future vaccinated me looks forward to a foray to the new Formaggio location. I consider specialty food shopping to be a treat, too. Miss it.
I visited the new space and agree with this. It’s much bigger than the old Formaggio location (yet seems oddly smaller than Fresh Pond Market). They have a much bigger selection of the same type of things the old Formaggio had, plus an in house butcher shop. It will be nice not to have to crowd into the little alleyway near the cheese counter a few days before Christmas.
I’ve got mixed emotions about it overall. Many in the neighborhood feel that the Formaggio owners pulled a bait and switch when they purchased Fresh Pond Market and promised to keep it as a neighborhood market. Nothing I saw in the new space could remotely be considered to have achieved that in terms of variety or price.
I was really worried about that and sorry to see those fears confirmed, even as I welcome an expanded FK.
Let me resurrect this thread.
No, FK has not replaced Fresh Pond Market. No longer can you get mass-market toilet paper there at higher-than-mass-market prices. But you can get expensive and rather exquisite licorice toothpaste.
But, on the whole, FK v FK, it’s a step up from the old. Greater variety, for one thing. Occasional onigiri, for example. A superb butcher, for another (the cow comes in on Wednesdays). The most pristine fish I’ve had in Boston on day one (when it comes in) and as pristine as Cape Ann etc. on days 2 and 3.
What I’d like particularly to praise here is their prepared food. This feature was started under the expert hand of Eduardo Miranda in their old location, and continues in the new under his overall benevolent watch, but hugely extended. The kitchen is now putting out some of the best food in Boston. On Wednesday my wife and I had their confit-like pork (with lovely cracklings), charred cauliflower, and rice&beans for a total of $15. Apart from the price, we’d have raved about each dish had we paid three times as much at a restaurant. Today, some excellent sliced steak and superb rice pudding (every Friday).
Disclosure: I know many of the FK people – but am very rarely comped anything.
To add some practical information, to get their food as it is put out you need to get there at 12:15 and compete with the regulars salivating around the counter. I got ahead of one such recently, and when the counter-person asked who was first she started placing an order. I interjected firmly that I’d been there before her. She didn’t argue the point, but muttered as I placed a biggish order “I’m in a hurry”. A second person took her order: one slice of steak and a small tongful of greens.
More secrets: As I said, the cow comes in on Wednesdays. On Thursday they have a lovely ring of oxtail ($12/lb). Despite my efforts to keep this going, the tail does not always sell. (At Dulock in the past that cut was among the earliest to go.) It ends up in their freezer. Look for it.
My mom would look for it at FK, see the price, and then retell me her story of getting oxtail for free from our local butcher counter in suburban RI. She was a meek Korean woman but when there was free oxtail for the asking (it would get discarded) to make her magical broths, she got over her shyness. I often wonder what the butcher thought about her. I didn’t chime in on the oxtail thread but sharing it here.
Yes, oxtail has gone from a freebie to a semi-luxury.
Yes, the prepared offerings are excellent and definitely clear the bar of ‘I couldn’t have easily have made this myself at home’. They are a good option once a while when we can’t cook.
Truly some of the most entitled people on the face of the planet. I know some of them are my neighbors, but Formaggio is really a magnet for this type. I have had people try to knowingly cut in front of me more often than not when it is crowded. It’s really a bummer.
I think that is a rather unfair depiction of Fresh Pond Market. What I believe most miss about the market is the convince of a true local grocery option where you could actually buy toilet paper, walkable for many. Now the closest option is Star Market on Mt. Auburn (where the toilet paper isn’t really any less expensive). Not to mention the loss of one of the best (and most affordable) butchers in all of Boston. A true neighborhood butcher who would order and cut whatever you wanted within a day if they didn’t have it.
In fairness it should also be stated that some of them are among the most interesting people on the planet. I once chatted with Sissela Bok in line.
I met Sissela Bok when I was in college. She was quite shy even in a small setting. She is a very interesting person, and I would have loved to have been able to converse with her at greater length. Her husband much more voluble and didn’t give her much of a chance to talk. He’s also interesting. There are lots of famous, recognizable people in Cambridge.
I’ve lived around Harvard Square for around thirty-five years now, after a 10 year gap between college graduation and graduate school. Yes, lots of interesting people. And lots of entitled people who may or may not be “interesting.”
The difference in behavior and awareness of others among adults and their children shopping at FK (and especially the Whole Foods on Prospect St. in Cambridge; Fresh Pond and River St. are much larger stores so it’s not as noticeable) and the Market Basket in Somerville is quite remarkable.
I have had many interesting encounters with people at the MB in Somerville. They are not a child with two parents who are each Nobel Prize winners, and they aren’t Steven Pinker marching down Kirkland Street carrying some kind of ancient weapon. And they are not Bill Weld walking down Brattle St. like he owns it, or Caroline Kennedy just walking down Brattle St. However, they are interesting, and polite, and don’t shove in front of others. They are fair, in other words, to other humans.
Being interesting and/or famous doesn’t make it ok or fair to be rude.
