Curds of Wisdom from Venissimo’s New Owner, Rob Graff

By Frank Sabatini Jr.

After a successful 21-year run, Gina Freize and her husband, Roger, have transferred ownership of Venissimo Cheese to their longtime employee Rob Graff. The business has a shop in Mission Hills where it first launched, as well as two others—in North Park and Del Mar.

While Freize and hubby prepare to set off for an enviable retired life in Italy later this year, Graff now wears the badge of San Diego’s primary cheese monger. It is a role that requires supplying retail and wholesale customers with the latest and greatest artisan cheeses from the U.S. and Europe—and sampling every one of them along the way. (Certainly not the worst job in the world.)

Graff will also continue to oversee a couple of auxiliary ventures operated through Venissimo such as the “Academy of Cheese,” which features lively cheese classes that he helped create nearly 15 years ago.

We caught up with Graff last month, just days after Freize officially passed him the torch. Here is what he revealed about his business plans while telling us a thing or two about the glorious virtues of cheese itself.

Downtown Condo Guys: When did you start working at Venissimo? And in what capacity?

Graff: It was in May of 2008. I worked behind the counter 40 hours a week cutting cheese, wrapping cheese, selling cheese, and then going home every night to study cheese.

Downtown Condo Guys: Was it your early intention to work as a cheese monger?

Graff: It wasn’t something I planned on doing, although I was taken by cheese from the start. I moved here from the Bay Area in 1998 to go to college and ended up staying. I majored in political science and history—and had a job for a year in corporate sales, which I really didn’t love. I was working at Venissimo while looking for another career-kind of job. But I changed my tune when falling in love with cheese and the industry. I loved Gina’s vision as she was putting money into expanding her empire.

Downtown Condo Guys: At what point did you stop looking for work outside of Venissimo?

Graff: It was about a year after I started at Venissimo. The carrot was dangling in front of me, and Gina made me feel I could go somewhere. That’s when she gave me the opportunity to start the Academy of Cheese —AOC for short, which is also the abbreviation for the French regulatory system called Appellation d’Origine Controlee. The system controls and protects agricultural food products from their regions of origin.

Downtown Condo Guys: Where are the academy’s classes held, and how often?

Graff: We hold four classes a month at our Del Mar location in the Flower Hill Promenade and one class a month at our North Park location inside Bottlecraft. The classes are intimate, for about 10-15 people. Sometimes we do collaborations with other businesses at different locations, such as at Seven Grand in North Park for cheese and whiskey pairings.

We also do fun team-building classes for corporate/private events—either in-person or virtually. For those we do between 10 to 20 a month.

Downtown Condo Guys: Do you plan on expanding or eliminating any of Venissimo’s three locations?

Graff: For now I’m going to keep it the same. If the right situation comes up, I’ll consider another retail location.

Downtown Condo Guys: Tell us about the “Veni Voyages” that Venissimo offers.

Graff: Gina and I had started visiting cheese makers all over Europe at places that were making some of the cheeses we were selling. We then decided to start bringing consumers to these farms and meet the people running them. Our first group trip was in 2017 to Northern Italy. We average about two to three trips a year. Gina will stay involved with helping to organize the trips. The next voyages are to Northern Italy in September; Normandy in Spring of 2026; and The Alps in fall of 2026.

Downtown Condo Guys: How many types of cheeses does Venissimo stock at any given time?

Graff: At the Mission Hills and Del Mar shops we average between 100 and 120. In North Park it’s a little bit less—maybe between 50 and 75 different cheeses.

Downtown Condo Guys: From how many countries do they originate?

Graff: Around 10. They’re from the U.S. and Western Europe for the most part. Nearly all of them are made from the milk of cows, goats or sheep, although our mozzarella varieties are made from the milk of water buffalo.

Downtown Condo Guys: What is the stinkiest cheese you carry?

Graff: The number one stinky cheese is called (chuckle) Stinking Bishop. It’s a cow’s milk cheese from England that gets washed in pear cider that is made from Stinking Bishop Pears. We have customers who live and die by it. Although if we’re doing a catering order, we don’t put it on the platter.

Downtown Condo Guys: What is the creamiest cheese you have?

Graff: Anything that is triple-cream in the brie category. It is when the cheese contains over 80 percent butter fat. A good example is Delice de Bourgogne from Burgundy, France. It’s one of our best sellers, along with Gouda-style cheeses.

Downtown Condo Guys: How about the rarest cheese you offer?

Graff: There are many because we get cheeses monthly that you will never see again. They are the small-produced cheeses from small family farms in random places such as Indiana and the Northwest.

Downtown Condo Guys: How are your cheeses priced?

Graff: They range from $10 to $25 per half-pound, and you can buy any amount.

Downtown Condo Guys: What is the difference in quality between cheeses sold at grocery stores and those available at Venissimo?

Graff: Let me start by saying that the artisan cheese industry has advanced so much in the past 15 years that stores such as Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Costco, etc. actually have very good cheeses. The difference between them and Venissimo is that you can sample and engage with the monger. Also, we cut them to order. And we get cheeses from small family farms first, before the bigger stores do.

Downtown Condo Guys: What are the ideal curds for making mac-and-cheese, other than cheddar?

Graff: There’s a whole family of cheeses called Alpine cheeses, which include Gruyere, Fontina, Raclette and Comte. You can use any one of them or a blend of them to make killer mac-and-cheese.

Downtown Condo Guys: How much cheese a week do you consume?

Graff: I joke and say a half pound a day, but realistically two pounds a week. I do taste them for work, but most of it is for pleasure. These days I can just look at a cheese and tell its style and age.

Downtown Condo Guys: What are your top favorites and least favorites?

Graff: My favorites are Comte, which is firm and hard from the French Alps; and Camembert from northern France. That is a softer cheese with a garlicky-vegetal thing happening. My least favorites are the triple creams. I’m not really sure why I don’t like them—it’s a little bit of a texture thing.

Downtown Condo Guys: Name two or three misconceptions consumers have about cheese.

Graff: The first one is that American-produced cheeses are now some of the best in the world because they’re all copycats of European classics—but American cheese makers are free to put their own spins on them. They are not beholden to the strict European AOC rules. Also, people think that cheese is bad for you. It is actually really good for you because it is energy-dense, high in protein and calcium, and a little bit of it goes a long way. More importantly, it makes you happy.