Best Cheese Shop

Forty seconds into this engaging little shop, owners Kate and Dave Kaufmann will have you tasting a few cheeses you've never heard of before. Two minutes later, you'll have tasted ten. The generous taste tests are only part of what makes the Truffle the best cheese shop in town, though. Unlike the pre-wrapped wedges you find at grocery stores, the cheese here is cut to order from the Kaufmanns' extensive selection, which includes everything from local goat cheese to rare raw-milk wheels from remote farms in France. The Truffle also offers a dizzying array of packaged gourmet foods -- thyme-scented honey, porcini cream, duck prosciutto, dried chanterelles, orange-flower water, blackberry syrup -- along with fresh caviar, foie gras and the namesake truffles, of course. But the Kauffmans' true passion is cheese, and they know more about it than anyone we've come across. That knowledge elevates their store to a cut above the rest.