May 12-18, 2005

food

Blessed Are the Cheesemakers

LOVE FOR RENNET: Emilio Mignucci wraps up a piece of sharp provolone at the new Di Bruno's store. By: Michael T. Regan

With farmstead produce and 7-foot provolone, Di Bruno's new cheese store inherits the family's passion for discovery.

by A.D. Amorosi

It's only an hour after Di Bruno Bros. opened their new, palatial food emporium at 17th and Chestnut, and Lisa Bogan is crying. Around her, there's casing still hanging from the store's "pepperoni ribbon-cutting." Tuxedoed crooner John Paul Gazzara is cheerfully riffing through the Sinatra songbook with casual cool. This afternoon, May 5, every nook that wasn't supposed to be open to the public for sales — from the charcuterie station to the upstairs cheese bar and dining area — has been filled with rabidly buying crowds. And the cheese technicians yell "Ninth Street in the house!" upon recognizing an Italian Market regular.

Bogan, a Di Bruno Bros. cheese buyer, keeps sobbing. "It's unbelievable this is happening," she says, leaving this reporter feeling like the culinary Barbara Walters. The tears are for joy, all the sweeter with the growing pains of Di Bruno's business.

"The three young Mignucci boys have a way of pulling people in," says Bogan of the brothers Billy and Emilio, and cousin Bill Mignucci, who in 1990 bought the Di Bruno's House of Cheese business from Danny and Joe, two of three brothers who started their enterprise at 930 S. Ninth St. in 1939. Billy, Emilio and Bill are Danny's grandsons.

"They take your life over," says Bogan, wiping away tears.

With a selection of gourmet foods from around the world similar to that in the Ninth Street store, Di Bruno's S. 18th Street shop took on the Rittenhouse area eight years ago, turning downtowners into mortadella junkies. Now, that store has just closed to make way for the new, larger one. "People along 18th Street haven't had their fix all week," jokes Emilio about the crowds rushing around him on this opening day. "We weren't going to open for retail [today]. But how can you tell loyal customers, "No'?"

He won't have to. With the Mignuccis spending $4 million to buy the bricks and renovate this address — which includes a 300-square-foot cheese cave and two moisture- and climate-controlled cheese-aging rooms — the takeover's nearly complete.

By ingratiating themselves first to the Italian community with native goods, then riding the expanded palate and foodie colonization of the Italian Market in the '90s, Di Bruno's has earned a place among the city's roll call of culinary pioneers. The original brothers were the first people in this region to sell goat cheese. Now, the trio is always bringing new oils, cheeses and meats from around the world to the table. And they've given Bogan freedom to travel locally and internationally to discover new foods.

Provolone cheeses up to 7-feet long from Bologna. Sopressatas from Genoa. Pricy bries from France and Spanish cular chorizo from Spain. And America too has become an obsession. Farmstead cheeses (where the cheesemaker feeds and milks his own cows, producing the cheese from that fresh milk) are brought from Vermont, while slab bacon and country hams arrive from Benton's in Tennessee.

Better still, they're finding worthy goods in the tri-state region, partnering with area purveyors like Bartolini (for private-label olive oil) and Severino (who make a ravioli using Di Bruno's abbruzzee cheese spread). Other collaborators include La Colombe (for coffee), Reiker's (for German meats with natural casing) and Termini's, which make pastries using Di Bruno cheese. In the new store, right next to the Termini case are Tom Sciascia's The Painted Truffle handmade artisanal chocolates. Ask for his exclusive-to-Di Bruno's "Sicilian Kiss" with homemade organic pistachio cream.

Behind the cured olives, South African peppadews and Di Bruno's own stuffed peppers and eggplant caponata sits the cheese cave. Inside nestle farmstead cheeses soaked in brandy and lard, cased in leaves or wrapped in wood barks.

"I work here and I don't know half of the new stuff coming in," says Bogan of the overwhelming sights and smells.

That sense of discovery is what Di Bruno's see as their future, driving a new marketing plan that rolls the charm and professionalism into one shiny big store. "Philly was lacking a store of this culture, an emporium of this stature," says brother Billy. "Why should New York, San Francisco and Chicago have all the fun?"

"This city has always been good to us," says Emilio. "But this — the popularity of our catering and the Rittenhouse shop beyond the Italian Market — was accidental." Their expansion might find them competing against the likes of Dean & Deluca, a corporate foodie giant that had its eyes on Philly. "We're not afraid of competition," says Emilio, whose background in culinary arts began with a degree from Walnut Hill College Restaurant School. He shops regularly throughout Manhattan, at Balducci's and Grace's Marketplace, to understand his rivals.

The new store's mezzanine includes a cafe with big windows where, starting June 1, diners will be able to bring their own wines while noshing on chef Rob Mockus' prepared foods, and a white-tiled kitchen that will host tastings and seminars in association with the Book and the Cook. Standing there, Emilio speaks with confidence about Di Bruno's past and its future. "We've worked hard to maintain quality," he says. "What we do is very personable. That's how we have three and four generations of families shopping with us. That sort of inspiration makes us strive to do what we do better."

Di Bruno Bros., 1730 Chestnut St., 215-665-9220.