Max McCalman, World Renowned Cheese Expert
" Sennett's Cheese Grotto solves a problem every cheese lover faces: 'How can I prolong and/or maintain my cheeses at their optimal stages of ripeness? Cheeses are best preserved in their own microcosms with appropriate temperature, humidity, air flow, and microflora, and on permeable and easy-to-clean surfaces... Cheese Grotto provides all this in an attractive and portable package!"
Abby Carney, Edible Brooklyn
"There’s nothing quite like Sennett’s device on the market today, so dairy aficionados take note: The Cheese Grotto gives you back your control as a guardian of Gouda, an aspiring Swiss savant."
Brendan Newman, Dinner Party Download (NPR podcast)
"While some people may just wrap it up in plastic and throw it in the fridge, that’s actually what you shouldn’t do, as Brendan recently learned. That’s where Jessica Sennett comes in."
Blog, Murray's Cheese
"The Cheese Grotto is one of the coolest things that we have seen on Kickstarter in a long time. We often encounter the difficulties proper cheese storage at home, and the Grotto hopes to help us cheese lovers keep our curd in the best possible condition."
Steven Jenkins, The Cheese Primer
"This century-old device is the right and only way to keep and store cheese."
Saxelby Cheesemongers
"If you're a cheese dork like us, you're perpetually bummed out that the cheese in your fridge is not stored in its most optimal, cave-like conditions. Enter the Cheese Grotto!"
Culture: the word on cheese
"The Cheese Grotto is a revolutionary new product that's ready to bring the art of affinage and cheese preservation right to your home refrigerator!"
Dan Q. Dao, Saveur
"It’s a tricky task—keeping fancy cheeses fresh at home. As with wine, cheese has a specific preferred temperature, humidity, and exposure to air—preferences that home fridges don't accommodate. While plastic containers and wax paper have traditionally been used as passable makeshifts, longtime cheesemonger Jessica Sennett, who has spent time behind the counters of Cowgirl Creamery and Bedford Cheese Shop, wanted a more permanent solution."
Florence Fabricant, The New York Times
"Storing fine cheeses properly at home has long been a challenge. You can invest in special double-ply wrapping paper, but the temperature and humidity of a refrigerator do not flatter them. Working with an engineer and an industrial designer, Jessica Sennett, who has been behind the counters at Cowgirl Creamery and Bedford Cheese Shop, has developed a solution."
Virginia van Zanten, Vogue
"For the gourmand who already owns a green egg, the latest pour-over coffee contraption, drawers jammed with gadgets, and a pantry full of every spice, salt, pickling brine, and flavoring imaginable, what could you possibly add to their foodie arsenal? How about a countertop cheese grotto to keep their Délice de Bourgogne fresh far longer than the fridge’s produce drawer [...] Here, 15 gifts sure to impress even the pickiest of recipients."
Tia Keenan, Wall Street Journal
"This handsome countertop cheese cave provides a controlled climate to keep cheese in prime serving condition. For those who make cheese at home, it can double as an affinage system."
Valerio Farris, Food52 Product Review
"The grotto presents a stylish alternative to the refrigerator cheese drawer. It's definitely a lot more aesthetically pleasing, but the benefits extend beyond looks. Being able to keep your high quality cheeses in a contained, but controlled, environment is for sure a luxury. But this product makes that possible. I could feel the thought that went to every detail—the pullout drawers, the tiny internal thermometer, the windows that allow you to check on your cheese without disturbing its environment. I felt like I was not only treating myself, but treating my cheese. Scratch what I said about a cheese motel, this was a luxury cheese suite."
Madame Fromage Product Review
"Does it actually work? Yes, I experimented with storing both hard cheeses and bloomy (Brie-like) cheeses, like Doe Run’s Damselfly. Hard cheeses retain humidity in the Grotto, which is great. You don’t have to stifle them in plastic wrap or tinfoil, so you can keep them fresher longer. Cheeses with downy surface molds actually continue to ripen, so you can get a slightly underripe cheese to develop a runny center over a few days.
It was so gratifying to experiment with the Cheese Grotto, I decided to purchase the one that Jessica Sennet loaned me. I didn’t expect to bond with it, but it’s kind of like a toaster oven or a rice cooker — other “novelties” I didn’t think I wanted until I tried them. Now, I can’t imagine a Grotto-less existence."
David Gibbons, Wine Spectator
"Using time-honored pre-refrigeration technology, the Grotto, like a cigar humidor, offers airflow and humidity control - always a challenge - by way of its clay humidifying block and rear ventilation port. With is vaulted ceiling configuration, its essentially a miniature cheese cave."
Agropur Dairy Cooperative Research & Development Report via Lab Testing
"The use of the Cheese Grotto chamber seems to have improved the conservation of the products significantly. The flavor of the cheese was consistent (less ammonia profile).
The results of the sensory panel show the same trend as the results obtained by the proteolysis analysis ."
Rory Stamp, Winner of the 2018 Cheesemonger Invitational
"While a great cheesemonger can select a perfect piece of cheese for you, ultimately YOU need to decide what you enjoy most. The Cheese Grotto helps you better understand the journey of a cheese and it helps maximize the potential of its flavor. Wherever your favorite profile is on the spectrum, you can easily find the sweet spot with the Cheese Grotto."
Joan Monteillet, Head Cheesemaker and Founder at The Monteillet Fromagerie
"As a cheesemaker since 1997, this Cheese Grotto is the most important tool for storing cheese correctly. Not only is the craftsmanship of the materials beautiful, it is also functional and uses local artisans to create an investment for a lifetime. Our cheeses love to ripen in the Grotto."
Michael Januska, Owner of Old Brooklyn Cheese Shop
"The Cheese Grotto is a must have for anyone loves cheese. Looks stunning and keeps all of your cheeses in perfect condition."
Jeff Licciardello, Vine Pair
"When our CEO started using the Cheese Grotto, he soon realized that his life would never be the same. Drawing from both ancient cheese wisdom and contemporary technology, the Cheese Grotto allows you to create an optimal cheese storage climate right in your own kitchen. When storing unwrapped cheeses in the refrigerated Cheese Grotto Fresco, they stay fresh up to three times as long as stored regularly. This not only cuts down on food waste, but ensures your favorite triple crème will be fresh for weeks to come."
Agela, Marketing Director at Caputo Cheese
"We purchased the Cheese Grotto Piatto to offer our retail customers a beautiful quality product to help keep their cheese in excellent condition. The Piatto is a perfect size, and excellent price. As people try to waste less, this small little box is a great addition to a more sustainable lifestyle."
Megan Soll, Food & Wine
"There’s nothing more frustrating than finding that your stash of Parmesan or snack of cheddar cheese has taken a turn, rendering it useless for all the cooking needed for these weeks at home. At a time when we’re stocking up on groceries in larger quantities with greater intent, it’s essential to get the most out of everything we buy. When it comes to specialty cheese, the Cheese Grotto provides the ideal conditions to keep it fresh for its entire lifespan."
Jaya Saxena, Eater
"America still doesn’t have a great cheese culture. Americans consume about 40 pounds of cheese a year, mostly mozzarella, block cheddar, and other pre-sliced varieties you can get at the deli counter. But artisanal cheese production and consumption are growing. In 2019, the Rogue River Blue from Rogue Creamery in Oregon was judged best in the world at the World Cheese Awards. This year, American cheesemonger Sam Rollins won second place in the World’s Best Cheesemonger competition at the Mondial du Fromage, the best an American has ever done at the competition. And the charcuterie trend shows no signs of stopping.
That means more people than ever are appreciating artisanal cheeses, but with little intuitive knowledge on how to treat them right. The cheese grotto is sort of a set-it-and-forget-it tool when it comes to cheese storage. You can age your own cheese in there, if what you got at the cheese store seems under ripe to you. But if you have no idea what that’d even look like, you can just store what you have so it’s already on your counter when you want some. It’s an easy way to treat cheese well. And there’s a model that packs flat for easier storage when you’re fresh out of cheese."
Pamela Vachon, CNET
"If you're in the habit of wrapping cheeses in plastic wrap or bags and sticking them wherever in your fridge, you're potentially failing your cheeses on all three counts. If you're wrapping them in cheese paper and sticking them in a dedicated cheese drawer in your fridge, you're doing much better already. But a Cheese Grotto is the best way to create ideal conditions on all three fronts, while still being practical and efficient for a novice cheese lover to use at home. In fact, if you're using a Cheese Grotto appropriately, it should amount to a lot less work than unwrapping and rewrapping. Plus, you get to say, "May I show you to my cheese cave?" and mean it."
Leah Bhabha, Martha Stewart
"For anyone passionate about cheese, the grotto makes an excellent gift."
The O List: Made in the USA
"Listen up, cheese lovers. You may not have known that you need a cave for your precious cheese cargo, but it’s something to consider. This climate-controlled little wonder allows you to preserve up to two pounds of the good stuff either in the fridge or on your kitchen counter."
John Mariani, Mariani's Virtual Gourmet Newsletter
"I don't often write about food products or utensils, but an item has come my way that I was at first very skeptical about then found to be a remarkable way of preserving cheeses from day to day and week to week. It's called the CHEESE GROTTO, designed by Jessica Sennett,and it is described as a "humidor for cheese." When I got it, all it looked like was a wooden box with a slide-out plastic front. Inside is a slab of clay brick. Big deal, I thought. Another gimmick. Yet once you stick it in the refrigerator, the breathable wood allows in oxygen and the clay brick acts as a humidifier. Instructions say you can leave in on the counter at room temperature. So, I let it sit (in the fridge) and found that day after day the cheeses kept the way they do in natural caves, with the flavors and textures intact and no off aromas.
Sennett has been a cheese maker and monger and manager of cheese aging caves, so she had the expertise to make this for home use. She also runs a monthly cheese subscription. The basic Cheese Grotto runs $85 but they come in larger sizes for $125, $250 and $350. https://cheesegrotto.com/pages/cheese-grotto"