Part of the cheese display at Gastronomie 491.

By all rights, Nicole Ahronee should weigh 400 pounds. Walking through the aisles of Gastronomie 491 (491 Columbus Ave., betw. 83rd & 84th Sts., www.gastronomie491.com), the marketplace she recently opened on the Upper West Side, she has something to say about every single product on the shelves—she’s tasted every one, as well as countless similar that didn’t make the cut. French chocolates? Baguettes from Soho? Italian bucatini? She’s tried it and decided it was good enough to provide for her customers.

The amount of thought and effort that went into assembling the Upper West Side shop’s inventory is staggering—and the process hasn’t come to an end just because they’ve opened for business. The refrain you hear most frequently from Ahronee is “People seem to like it.” She’s watching how shoppers respond to every item, and if something doesn’t inspire the same excitement in her customers, it can be replaced.

“This is a new company I just brought in, but I think when we’re finished with this supply we won’t bring it back,” she said, pointing to one of a number of varieties of honey on offer. “It’s part of a being new store—there’s a lot of tweaking.”

That attention to detail doesn’t end with the marketplace’s well-stocked shelves. It filters down into absolutely everything, including the coffee they serve. While Italian import Illy is by now a well-known name, Gastronomie’s version may not be as familiar.

“I’m not fussy about a lot of things, but I’m fussy about coffee,” Ahronee said. “[Illy] got me to their showroom and had their barista there from Trieste, where they roast the beans, who said he would personally make me a coffee. I felt like a princess, but when I tasted it, it just wasn’t right.” That not-right coffee was the Normale roast, which is served in most cafés around the city.

“He said, ‘Just a minute,’ and went into the back and came back and made me another one, and a smile just came over my face.” That special roast, the darker Scuro, is now the coffee of choice at Gastronomie.

For the items she doesn’t know intimately, Ahronee has hired disciples to fill the gaps. In the shop’s small, open kitchen, Steven Gutterman is developing Mediterranean-tinged meals for a quick bite at the bar or one of the back tables or to take out by the pound. While most chefs watch the seasons to alter their menus, he watches peoples’ faces as they shop and eat.

In the back of the shop, Martin Johnson has built a charcuterie empire. “I knew he was the right guy when he showed up for the interview and said, ‘Would you like some cheese?’” Ahronee said. “Out of his knapsack, he pulled a little board and a knife and started cutting me some cheese right there.”

Johnson’s wraparound counter houses salumi and cheese from around the world, a strikingly sophisticated selection where Humboldt Fog, a smoke-tinged California goat cheese coated in ash, is the most well-known variety. But there’s no time to be intimidated, as Johnson is unwrapping blocks, cutting samples and telling stories for patrons the moment they show signs of confusion. It’s impossible to walk away from the counter without a parcel or two of a new favorite, sold on the strength of his enthusiasm.

The selection on the shelves is most striking when you realize the breadth of the coverage. Almonds from a family farm in California sit alongside Spanish potato chips fried in olive oil, above Antidote chocolate bars made in Long Island City. Ahronee’s attention to detail has her literally scouring the world. “Either you go to the little artisanal producer in Brooklyn or upstate, or you have to go through these big distributors that bring in the international products. I try to maintain a balance, but it can be frustrating to deal with so many different suppliers.”

Gastronomie 491 aims to be the neighborhood’s go-to hub for any point in the day, from your coffee first thing in the morning to on your way to a friend’s house for dinner. “If you need a lemon, we’ve got it. Most people you see in the shop are only carrying one or two items, but they’ll come back two or three times during the day,” Ahronee said. “I’ll see someone in the shop and say, ‘Oh, you’re still here!’ And they’ll tell me, ‘No, I just came back!’”

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a bit about the basics of pairing wine with food. I received a lot of questions from friends who read the column and wanted more specifics, so this week I’m going to expand on some of the principles I introduced in the last piece.
The first question, which I got from more people than any other, is, “What about wine and cheese?” This seems to be an area that is more daunting and intimidating than it needs to be. The ideas behind matching wine with cheese are as simple as the ideas behind matching wine with any other food—the three basic principles still apply.
There are an enormous number of cheeses that have a marked acidity to them. This is due to the natural acids that are present in cow, sheep and goat’s milk. Under certain conditions, when those cheeses age, the enzymes that are present can make the acidity even sharper. This is the case with fresh goat’s milk cheese (or chevre, as it is called in France), which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.
There are many other cheeses that have the same kind of sharpness to them. Humboldt Fog, which is also made from goat’s milk, and Bûcheron both fall into this category. In this instance, I would match them, with a wine that has acidity, as well. As I mentioned last week, this will hide the sourness and bring the more subtle flavors in the cheeses front and center.
Then there is the entire palette of blue cheeses. Many of these are so strong that they are an acquired taste, but to those who appreciate them, they are among the highest regarded in the world. A classic pairing for most robust blue cheeses is port. This goes with the second principle I discussed last week: pairing opposite tastes together. In this case, it is salty and sweet.
Even to someone who isn’t head over heels for the blue-veined curd, this pairing can make it palatable. Match a port with a blue Shropshire and you’ll taste caramel, toasted hazelnut and a host of other intense flavors you’d never thought were there.
The ultra-creamy cheeses present their own problems. With these, sometimes the fat content is so high that many people can only take a tiny portion before their palate is overwhelmed. The third principle is the best to use here; to match opposing textures. In this case, a rich and decadent Brillat-Savarin, which coats the tongue with every bite, should be matched with a heavier sparkling wine, like a blanc de noir. The bubbles clean the palate between bites, making the cheese less heavy and more enjoyable.
Aside from the flavor profiles, a popular idea in the wine and food world is to match wines and cheeses together that originate from the same area. This goes to the French idea of terroir, which is the concept that the land, the air and the specific weather patterns and climate of any area can be tasted in the food and wine that are made from the produce of that place. If a wine from Burgundy tastes like Burgundy, then wouldn’t a cheese from Burgundy match with that wine? In many cases, the answer is yes. And, staying with the Burgundy example, there are a number of runny cheeses from the area, such as époisses, that match brilliantly with the delicate and complex pinot noirs from that region.
Then I got hit with the second big question, which is “what about spicy food?” I quickly touched on it in the opening to my last piece on pairing but didn’t fully unpack it. The basic concept here is to put out the fire. It’s similar to the idea behind opposing tastes, but what you’re doing is tempering the heat. The best way to do that is to drink something with a moderate amount of sweetness to it. A riesling from the Mosel area of Germany is exactly what a spicy vindaloo wants to help cool its jets.
Keep the wine and food questions coming! And don’t be afraid to experiment yourself to find out what works and what doesn’t.

Follow Josh on Twitter: @joshperilo.