Grab Your Crackers!! Los Angeles Gets its First Vegan Cheese Shop!

Artisan vegan cheese has arrived in the City of Angeles, leading some to fear a local shortage of crackers, elbow macaroni and sourdough bread.

It’s just…it’s just so beautiful

Called Vromage, it’s a mecca of aged cheeses such as mock mozzarella, brie, cheddar, pepper-cheddar and, the most popular of the bunch, “veganzola.” Brought to us by Youssef Fakhouri, who will heretofore be know as our best friend, the shop offers a brick and mortar location to score some tangy plant-based goodness to take home.

Fakhouri wasn’t always a facilitator of faux fromage. A restauranteur from Santa Barbara who used to have meat on the menu, he began to transition away from using animal products upon moving to LA. A friend asked him to try and come up with a better recipe for vegan cheese than the ones available at the time, and an idea was born.

He told the LA Times, “I wanted to make cheese the way Europeans make cheese,” he says. “That other [vegan cheese], that’s not cheese. It doesn’t even taste good.”

Hello Lovah

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Taking seven days to age each batch, Fakhouri uses a secret blend of nuts and seeds. While he’s reluctant to say more about his ingredients, he likes to make sure people know that he refuses to rely on miso paste or soy milk in any of his cheese the way other recipes do.

This marks the second vegan cheese shop to hit the United States, the first being Dr. Cow in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. Add in the highly anticipated Herbivorous Butcher, an all vegan butcher shop opening in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2015, and it seems as though the evidence is pretty conclusive. Plant-based, compassionate choices are in demand and only getting better!

Now whip up a batch of tomato soup! We’ve got some grilled cheese to make!

Prepare yourself…herein lies deliciousness. 

Lead Image Credit: Keepin it Kind