By Andrea Sachs

What is a cheesemonger, you might ask?

According to Merriam-Webster, a cheesemonger is a “merchant who specializes in cheese.” But to a passionate foodie, that would be considered a  Velveeta-quality definition. A gifted cheesemonger can elevate any celebration or gathering by expertly recommending the correct cheese to pair with your wine or food, while also advising which cheeses are in season and at their peak.

Enter Martin Johnson, 64, an accomplished Upper West Side cheesemonger who has been in the business for 40 years. Johnson has helped a number of Manhattan-and-beyond enterprises launch and run their cheese divisions.

In late 2021, during the pandemic, the owners of 67 Wine and Spirits, in business on Columbus Avenue since 1941, came calling. The business had a space down the street and wanted to open a cheese shop.

Since then, Johnson has been the manager and guiding force behind 67 Gourmet, a small gem of a shop on Columbus Avenue between West 68th and 69th streets. This compact but bountiful store — New York Times food and wine writer Florence Fabricant in 2022 called it a “well-stocked nook” — is a popular destination for the culinary community and a happy discovery for many local shoppers and passersby.

“We’re not just selling cheese; we’re selling a passion for cheese,” Johnson told me when I recently visited the shop. As their website declares, “At 67 Gourmet, we believe in the transformative power of deliciousness.”

Like a docent in an art museum, Johnson’s observations and anecdotes made the tour of the store a treat, especially for someone like me who was raised on American cheese.

The store is a trove of artisan cheeses, charcuterie, exotic olive oils, expertly aged vinegars, honeys, jams, and preserves. Jonathan Auerbach, one of 67 Gourmet’s employees, has become somewhat of a neighborhood celebrity with his outside table of cheese samples.

The store carries 150 cheeses, 40 at any given time, with seasonality, availability, and sometimes Johnson’s whims determining what is currently available.

67 Gourmet’s most popular cheese?

Essex Comte, a Gruyere-style cheese that Johnson describes as “super-approachable and nutty.” Their most expensive cheese? Rogue River Blue, which comes in at more than $100 a pound and is among the most coveted blue cheeses in the world.

Has Johnson found Upper West Siders distinctive in their taste for cheese?

“Being where we are, in the shadow of Lincoln Center,” he says, “I think that there’s a greater appetite for experimentation with cheese and a good bit less price sensitivity.”

Johnson, who grew up as the youngest child of what he describes as a “foodie family” in Chicago’s Hyde Park/Kenwood neighborhood, and later in Dallas, is a man of many interests. Besides being a Big Cheese in the culinary world, he is also a widely published freelance writer. He recently did his first segment as a jazz critic on NPR’s Fresh Air.

The beginning of Johnson’s career was less than auspicious, though.

After graduating as an English major from Columbia University in 1982, Johnson set out to find a job as a journalist. That ended up being a difficult experience. “I interviewed at several news organizations, the New York Times, the New York Daily News, this new joint that hadn’t started yet called USA Today, but I got nowhere,” he said.

Needing a job to support his writing, Johnson followed his taste buds. That turned into decades of dairy at numerous places such as Bloomingdale’s, Petak’s on Madison Avenue, the Bedford Cheese Shop in Williamsburg, and Gastronomie 491 on Columbus Avenue. Gourmet 67 is his fifth cheese startup.

During the same years, he wrote scores of freelance stories, often about jazz, for a number of leading publications, including The New York Times, which had turned him down for a job. His writing has also been included in seven books.

How does Johnson reconcile the two disparate paths his life has taken?

They’re not all that different, he says.

“As a jazz critic, or even as a journalist in general, what I’m trying to do is make the pleasures of something somewhat exotic, more approachable. And as a cheesemonger, I’m trying to make the pleasures of something somewhat exotic, more approachable.”

Nothing cheesy about that!

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