A Valley cheese shop not to be overlooked

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In this week’s Food section, a listing of cheese stores that accompanied an article about the great American cheese plate glaringly omitted a well-loved cheese store in the San Fernando Valley, the Artisan Cheese Gallery in Studio City.

It was my bad, and I heard about it. Says one reader: ‘Somehow you could not manage to locate, let alone mention, the extraordinary cheese shop we have right here in Studio City ... the Artisan Cheese Gallery. It’s on a little side street called Ventura Boulevard, near another dirt road called Laurel Canyon Boulevard.’

Melody Dosch, who owns the store with her parents, Fred and Kay Dosch, says she carries 200 to 250 different cheeses at any one time. ‘I like to carry as many American cheeses as I can,’ Melody Dosch says, including cheeses from Petaluma, Calif.-based Andante cheesemaker Soyoung Scanlan, goat cheeses from Pug’s Leap in Sonoma, and sheep’s milk cheeses from Rinconada Dairy in San Luis Obispo County, as well as cheeses from other artisan and farmstead American cheesemakers such as Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont, Vermont Butter & Cheese and Hidden Springs Creamery in Wisconsin.

Dosch, a former lawyer, opened the store more than three years ago. ‘There wasn’t a cheese store in the Valley, and my kids were young enough that if I did this and it didn’t work out, I could always go back to being a lawyer and still pay for college. But so far it’s going well.’

Another reader pointed out that her favorite Silver Lake cheese store is Say Cheese. If there are other cheese shops that you love in your neighborhood, please let us know.

Artisan Cheese Gallery, 12023 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, (818) 505-0282. Say Cheese, 2800 Hyperion Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 665-0545.

-- Betty Hallock