Venissimo (finally!) adds grilled cheese sandwiches to its menu

A delicious sign of the times at Liberty Public Market's Venissimo.

San Diego Union-Tribune

Aug. 28, 2019 4 PM PT

Venissimo Cheese, San Diego’s premier purveyor of fine cheese from around the world, has added five grilled cheese sandwiches to its LPM repertoire. When my cheesehead friend and I saw the sign for them, we let out an audible gasp. Why haven’t they thought it this sooner? There’s the obligatory Caprese, a sweet (double cream brie and fig jam) a savory (sharp cheddar and spicy jam), a Bavarian (mustard ale cheddar and smoked prosciutto) and the aptly named Gouda Idea (sweet Gouda and spicy soppressata).

Sandwiches are $10 and come with a free Chuao chocolate or fruit. My friend and I split the savory sandwich — we ate our mini Chuao Firecracker, with dark chocolate, sea salt, chipotle and popping candy, while our grilled cheese was on the panini press — and loved every ooey, gooey bite of it. Not too spicy, it might be be the best grilled cheese either one of us has had.

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Michele Parente

Michele Parente is the Dining, Wine + Lifestyle reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Her areas of expertise include the Valle de Guadalupe wine region, fashion, television, women’s issues and coverage of aging, such as the impact of Alzheimer’s and dementia and family caregiving. Michele is the former Sunday and features editor, where she oversaw profiles, special projects, such as the Legacy of WWII and in-depth reports on a variety of topics. She joined the U-T in 2003, supervising coverage areas that have included features, fashion, TV, Food, Consumer Health and Arts & Entertainment. Previously, Michele was the assistant features editor at The Oregonian, in Portland, as well as the Portland City Hall reporter. She spent 10 years at New York Newsday as a reporter on the crime, education, state legislature and New York City Hall beats. She was part of a team that won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting. A native New Yorker, Michele received her B.A. in political science and Italian Literature at UC Berkeley. In 1980, she studied at L’Università di Urbino, in Italy. One of her life’s goals is to make her way through each of the world’s great wine regions.