Leonard Lopate at Large: Lou Di Palo

Today Leonard talks with Italian food expert Lou Di Palo, the owner of his favorite cheese shop, Di Palo’s Fine Foods in Little Italy.

The food blog Serious Eats described Di Palo’s Fine Foods a “100-year-old Italian specialty market with incredible mozzarella and fresh porchetta. Expect long waits, but they’re worth it.” Chef Daniel Boulud has called Di Palo one of the seven wonders of New York.

“Di Palo’s stories come from the gathering of the food, the discovery of where it was made,” wrote Kenneth Rapoza of Forbes. “It’s not so much about the taste, but what makes it taste that way in the first place. So it all inevitably comes down to the air and the water and the grass and the sheepherder he’s met that led him to the perfect little farm, that made the perfect little cheese, somewhere south of Trentino.”