As you approach Mozzarella4u at a farmers’ market, you might notice a photo from 1985 of a young man, Greg Tosto, caught in the middle of making cheese.
What you may not know is that this man essentially designed the mozzarella operation at Stew Leonard’s in Yonkers, where Tosto started working in 1999. Within 21 days, he helped the store increase production from a mere 400 pounds per week to more than a ton. Before then, his “boot camp training” was at the original Balducci’s of Greenwich Village in the 1980s.
Over the years, Tosto has worked at several businesses, but he has always stuck to the cheese, launching his own, Mozzarella4u, in April 2012.
“I used to watch my grandfather as a child,” he says of his interest in making the cheese. His grandfather worked at Casa della Mozzarella in the Bronx. Tosto would visit him at work, going to the back to watch, only to be shooed away. “What I enjoyed was that he would sing while making the mozzarella, while everybody else would look like they were sucking on lemons,” he recalls. “There was something there… a passion, an art.”
Tosto loves to teach anyone interested, even competitors who used to spy on him on the job. “That has helped keep me on the cutting edge,” he says. “People like to try something new.” He’s developing an Asian-inspired Burrata and likes to put a twist on recipes, like swapping basil and tomatoes for mint and permissions.
There is catering for all occasions and classes available for parties of all sizes, even in private kitchens. You can also visit Hmart in Hartsdale to see Tosto in action.
He once wanted to see just how much mozzarella he could make in a day — 20 bundles, 42 pounds each. “I was squeezing water out of my hands,” Tosto says. “I will never do that again, for anyone.”
Sold at select area farmers’ markets and Hmart in Hartsdale.
