24. Norbert Wabnig and his Cheese Store Beverly Hills are definitely C02!
Early each morning in Beverly Hills when most neighbors
on the grand 90210 Drives are sipping their lattes and reading the morning
papers, behind a not very large but very well-known store-front, cheeses are
getting ready for their day. A cacophony of languages comes from the
Cheese Store Beverly Hills; it’s a new day with exciting places for cheeses and
their friends, wines, to go.
Probably on Canon at Spago Wolfgang has his ovens stoking,
and his chefs chopping; and around the corner in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel
silent feet push gliding gueridons with morning coffee room-service. But at Tiffany, at Dior, at Gucci and Chanel,
in the vaults of Barakat’s ancient worlds’ antiquities, and even at Galerie
Michael, silence reigns as precious objects still sleep dreaming of their
worth.
But over there at 419 North Beverly things are fast and
furious, where they know exactly how much each moment is worth: getting all
those cheeses perky, accepting delivery of crisp just baked Dolce Forno baguettes and
ciabattas;
weighing and putting away for further aging new-arrivee cheeses from
the far corners of the globe, preparing catering trays for the day’s events,
and creating cheesy gift-baskets for country-wide shipping or local delivery,
all conducted in numerous languages. (a
total of nine languages are spoken by the staff of The Cheese Store Beverly
Hills, five by Raffi.)
It is good Norbert Wabnig and his crew are there so
early. Norbert Wabnig and general
manager and food and wine expert Toni Princiotta’s deliveries must come first
thing after dawn every day in this 90210 emporium of cheese, the finest for
sure in the United States and the oldest in continual existence: cheese will not wait when it is ready.
Soon wine merchants are waiting downstairs
for Tony and Norbert and Erik to taste and assess wines for Tony’s Wine
Corner.
Dominic is busy making his fresh
pastas and sun-dried tomatoes,
his stuffed peppers, and finding the finest and
most delicious of Sicilian oils and olives to import.
Erik is deciding which wine to pair with
which cheese this week. And Shivon is on
the computer taking and sending orders.
Then there are the wine and cheese seminars to prepare. Oh this is a busy place and all that cheesy
busy leaves little time for Norbert to play his piano which presides grandly
over the whole establishment.
In the olden days when Norbert Wabnig, musician from New
Orleans arrived in Beverly Hills in need of another job to pay the rent, way
back there in 1974, he happened upon Colonel Ross and his Cheese Shop. N’Awlins boy Norbert must have been giddy
working for a Colonel. And soon he
became Colonel, buying out Ross in 1978.
In those days the Kingdom of Cheese was grand, but much smaller than
today’s. Norbert and Tony search and
travel the globe to find the best and most exotic. And today there are 300 cheeses to choose
among.
Because Norbert’s personality matches in rareness his
talents, Norbert is like Champagne, filled with life and sparkle. And when the moment strikes the right
chord, Norbert drops the cheeses and sprints upstairs to his baby grand. Recently he and Ruthie Grahm, mother of that
wine scalawag Randall, composed the theme song for friend and neighbor down on
Canon Drive, Wolfgang Puck and his Meals on Wheels celebration which raises
millions annually for feeding those in need.
“Beyond Cheese” some areas of the store could read. Here is where you will find Imperial Golden
Osetra caviar, and white honey from Hawaii; truffles, black and white, in
season; and the finest of olive oils from every olive region. A
morning at Cheese Store Beverly Hills is a veritable feast of gastronomic
richness. Beatle Fan and look-alike,
Norbert Wabnig, is truly Champagne-like, filling the world with more star-dust.
Julius Caesar agrees with me:
nunc bibendum est, Norbert. A true Champagne personality!
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