International Cheese Company

Just a warning: I may have to delete this review within a few weeks of posting, because once people know about this place, there will be lineups out the door and most of them will surely be wearing scarves.
It’s called International Cheese but that’s just a front. It’s really the retail store of Santa Lucia, a local producer of Italian cheeses who you’ve surely seen in many a quality grocer. They do mozzarella, scamorza, bocconcini, among others, but the main thing is the ricotta. You can buy it packaged elsewhere and it will still be a fantastic product, but for the full experience you must come to the store, located at a desolate intersection near Keele and St Clair.
The full experience is fresh, warm ricotta sold in one-​litre tubs, half-​immersed in its own whey. It may be shocking to feel warmth from something that’s typically sold fridge cold, but it’s only that temperature because they literally just made it that morning. Take it as a sign of freshness. And while age is often something desirable in a cheese, fresh ricotta is unripened, and thus best enjoyed while young. As far as I know, this is the only operation in town dishing fresh ricotta six days a week. I’ve also heard a lot about their burrata but haven’t sampled it yet myself.
Besides cheese, there’s also a notable selection of dry pastas, including brands you may not recognize. DeCecco has a whole wall to itself, which it certainly deserves. Of course there’s olives, tomato paste, canned tuna, etc, like any other Italian enterprise. But you buy that WITH your cheese, not the other way around.
Obviously something this good can’t stay a secret for long, so maybe deleting the review is a futile exercise. I did decide to write it, after all. I suspect the scarf people already know about it anyways, as the neighbourhood looks a lot like Williamsburg.
And I guess it’s good for people to have good cheese, no matter what they look like or how they act, or whatever sort of shallow interests they enjoy maintaining. Yeah. I’m sorry, everybody. Please go to International Cheese and hold warm cheese in your hands. Join me in this communion. Just keep quiet and don’t bring up any favourite records. It’s a fragile peace.