Valerie Gurdal, Owner
Valerie moved to the Boston area from Miami, FL in 1980 to pursue a college education. Before moving to Boston she spent 6 months living in Madrid with her aunt and uncle. While in Madrid she developed a love for the daily market experience of visiting her local cheesemonger, bakery, meat purveyor and various fruit and vegetable stands. After arriving in Boston she sought out similar shops with an eye for the unique and inspiring and she soon discovered Formaggio Kitchen. While working in the kitchen at the well-respected Cambridge restaurant Chez Nous, she became acquainted with Ihsan Gurdal from her frequent trips to the shop. In 1984, she decided to work at Formaggio Kitchen full-time. Throughout the late 1980's the Valerie and Ihsan brought more and more exclusive items into the country from France, Italy and Spain.

In 2000 Valerie opened South End Formaggio, the first store of its kind in the neighborhood. Since then Valerie and Ihsan have worked together to create in their stores the "market-experience" that inspired their love of food.

Julie Cappellano, General Manager & Wine Buyer
Julie studied cooking, baking, wine and food history at the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont, and graduated with a Culinary Arts Degree in 1998. She was assistant to Pastry Chef Karen Barker of Magnolia Grill (Durham, NC) when Karen won the James Beard Award for Best Pastry Chef in the country and she had the opportunity to cook at the James Beard House in New York in 2002 while working as a line cook at Elaine’s on Franklin (Chapel Hill, NC).

Working part-time in the cheese department of A Southern Season gourmet shop in Chapel Hill lured Julie away from the heat of the kitchen and into the world of wine and cheese. She relocated to Boston in 2003 to re-discover her New England roots and has been at South End Formaggio ever since, becoming the wine buyer for the shop in 2004. Julie has attended the Universita per Stranieri language school in Perugia, Italy and travels each April to VinItaly wine show in Verona where she also attends smaller 'rogue' organic wine shows hosted by the Vini Veri Group and Nicolas Joly's Renaissance des Appellations. Julie has narrowed the focus of the wine department to include almost exclusively sustainably farmed, organic or biodynamic producers, small-grower Champagnes, and good value every day wines from small farms. She has met in person and/or visited the farms of nearly every wine producer represented in our store.

Leslie Mann, Cheese Buyer
Leslie graduated from Brown University in 2002 and joined the South End Formaggio staff in 2004 after a short stint as a litigation paralegal. Despite having no proper culinary training, she at once felt inspired and at home behind the cheese counter and knew she would never actually go though with her distant plan of attending law school.

Her love of tasting and cooking is eclipsed only by her passion for cheese and the biochemistry of cheese making. As cheese buyer she has focused her efforts on expanding South End Formaggio’s selection of New England cheeses and connecting customers with both those farmers and their cheese making process. Leslie has attended the Bra Cheese Festival in Bra, Italy and the Salon de Fromage in Paris, and has travelled to the Jura to taste and choose our wheels of Comte from Marcel Petit.