Erica De Mane

Happy customers at DiPalo’ in Little Italy, New York.

I don’t know if it happens to you, but often when I purchase Gorgonzola, even in fancy Manhattan shops, it’s overripe, mushy and ammonia-stinking. That’s because these days you almost always have to buy cheese with your eyes, not your nose. You’re presented with precut, plastic-wrapped pieces. This could never happen at DiPalo. There the cheeses are meticulously fussed over and never ever presliced. The store actually smells like cheese. What a concept. And they have the fine habit of offering you a sliver of everything you choose, just to make sure it has exactly the taste you were looking for.

They’re dedicated people, Lou, Sal, and Marie DiPalo, still running the shop their family opened in 1910 not long after arriving in New York from Basilicata. DiPalo is one of those rare shops that actually continue to get better every year, something you definitely can’t say of anything else in Little Italy. Lou DiPalo lives and dreams cheese. He seeks out the best Italy has, and he keeps it in peak form. The lines are long, and the service is slow but highly attentive. You miss out on all this fun if you shop from their new website, but if you don’t live in New York, DiPalo’s online shopping is a very nice thing to know about.

DiPalo’s house-made mozzarella is superb. It is not available online; they consider it to fragile to ship. So if you want a treccia, one of their hand-braided fresh mozzarellas, you’ll have to make the trip to their lively little shop, at 200 Grand Street. But a nice hunk of Piacentinu, the saffron-scented Sicilian pecorino? No problem. You can click it into your life. DiPalo carries an especially good selection of Italian sheep’s milk cheeses, stuff that’s hard to find elsewhere and especially in such pristine condition. When all I can find at most groceries is low quality, sharp and often miserable tasting pecorino Romano, DiPalo carries a diverse and really fine assortment of varieties, such as the fresh and mild Brinata, a Tuscan pecorino I picked up the other day to serve with grapes. I often buy Pecorino di Fossa from Le Marche to use as a grating cheese when I’m making a spicy ragu, or I’ll instead choose DiPalo’s Ubriaco Marzemino, a pecorino aged in wine, which shows itself off well in pasta cacio e pepe.

While browsing through the website you’ll notice that DiPalo carries a lot more than cheese. If you live in an area with a dearth of excellent olive oil, fine-tuned salumi, or artisinal pasta, then this new venue for online Italian food shopping is definitely for you.

www.dipaloselects.com

DiPalo
200 Grand Street
New York, N.Y.
(212) 226-1033