Formaggio Kitchen is a nominee for a Luxist Award in the Best Cheese Shop category.

Formaggio Kitchen has been an institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts for over 30 years. It is a gourmand's paradise doubling as a neighborhood grocer. Visitors go to Formaggio Kitchen to stock up on cheeses, cured meats and baked goods, always leaving with something they've never seen before that is sure to become a new house staple. Chefs, both professional and amateur, rely on Formaggio Kitchen for that special ingredient they can't find anywhere else.

Each year, Formaggio Kitchen staff travel to the far reaches of the planet in search of the world's finest artisan products. Their shelves are brimming with products made by individual artisans, each as wonderful as the next: honeys from Sardinia & Piedmont sit aside farmhouse jams from Pays Basque & l'Ardeche, while spicy organic tomato sauce from Liguria neighbors briny Brittany fleur de sel.

Marble slabs support cuts of cheese artistically arranged each morning. Its cheese selection is from cheesemakers around the world, from North America to Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Greece and Italy. At any given time, there are more than three hundred cheeses available to Formaggio Kitchen customers.

But it is Formaggio Kitchen's cheese caves, built out of an old office deep in the nether-reaches of the basement beneath Huron Avenue, that makes it most proud. Constructed in 1996 (as the first of its kind in this country) with all the damp, musty, chilly characteristics of an Alpine hillside, the caves now hold its precious stock at their ideal temperature and humidity, creating both a place to age young wheels and maintain moisture in older ones.

Formaggio Kitchen has locations in Cambridge, Ma., in Boston and New York City. Each store carries a similar selection of imported and domestic delicacies, but each has its own flair. The Formaggio Kitchen website offers an overwhelming selection of cheeses from around the world, in addition to an abundance of oils, vinegars, spreads, chocolate, spices, breads, olives, meats, seafood and antipasti.

Vote now for what you believe is the best of breed in Gourmet Foods. Readers' Choice Awards for Food will be announced on November 30th.

Gallery: More from Formaggio Kitchen