More than 100 different cheeses lie in the refrigerated showroom inside Goudy’s Deli & Market, a new market bringing European goods to Denver’s Washington Park neighborhood.
To name a few of the varieties: Tomme aux fleurs coated with edible flowers and cave-aged gruyere; truffle, goat and blue cheeses from France and Spain; and cheddar, ticino and alpine cheese from Colorado Farmhouse Cheese Co. in Loveland.
The number of goods in the “cheese cave” may be surpassed, though, by the packs of sausages stuffed in freezers and made by store co-owner Christophe Goudy, a French immigrant who brought his charcuterie skills from the Bay Area to Denver in 2021.
Goudy and his wife Celine joined talents with Yvan Lehuerou, a fellow French immigrant who has run Le Frigo, a cheese and provisions shop, for nine years in Boulder, to open the market at 1207 E. Alameda Ave. in December.
Lehuerou handles the shipments and deliveries of the imported dairy and pantry items that fill the shelves, and Goudy purveys Front Range meat and prepares more than a dozen varieties of sausages made with seasonal ingredients.
“We are looking for local and short-circuit,” Goudy said of his farm purveyors, meaning there aren’t many steps from farm to shop. “We don’t want to get what the others have.”
The market items, however, are anything but short-circuit. An astounding collection of fine foods lines the racks along the long wall of the Tetris block-shaped interior.
Goudy and Lehuerou initially eyed a nearby property that now houses Leven Supply, a bistro and deli that also sells ingredients that allow customers to whip up an impressive dinner or snacks to fill a wicker picnic basket. While Goudy’s doesn’t sell wine or beer, Lehuerou has purveyors in his contact list crafting pasta in Italy, harvesting olives in Spain and canning sardines and mackerel in France.
The vast array of cheeses, though, is Lehuerou’s specialty. Other fine cheese stores exist in Denver (St. Kilian’s Cheese Shop, Truffle Cheese Shop, So Damn Gouda Cheese + Provisions, to name three), but he and Goudy are fairly convinced none are selling as many kinds as they are. Other varieties will be on display in their cheese room as the seasons change, sliding in next to the sticks of French butter and cases of blood sausage and head cheese, which is not a cheese at all but a meat jelly.
“I don’t think anybody else has a walk-in [fridge] like this,” Lehuerou said about the cheese cave.
Freezers outside the cave store Goudy’s sausages, including variety packs with long spicy chicken, chipolata and merguez links, the latter made with lamb. He blends green chiles in recipes and parsley and lemon zest in others, and said he could accommodate a client’s request for a specific sausage order.
Goudy’s knowledge of meat processing and butchering is spread across Europe, the U.S. and Front Range farmers markets.
He comes from a line of butchers and meat packers from the south of France, responsible for much of the country’s rabbit meat, he said. It was a marketing and communication job that brought him to California. It was his wife’s idea, he said, to start a charcuterie shop in the San Francisco suburb of Belmont.
Lehuerou and Le Frigo became one of their clients. The meat factory closed in 2021. Lehuerou and the Goudys spent the next two years looking for a space to collaborate in Washington Park.
The market also stocks cuts of meat from Overall Farms, whose herds graze between Colorado and Kansas, Goudy said. Lehuerou sources serrano ham, prosciutto, pancetta, salami and a rare-to-find Iberic ham “de bellota” that sells for $121.99 a pound.
At the deli counter, employees prepare sandwiches on baguette bread, using dough from La Belle French Bakery and the shop’s ingredients, ranging from $10.99 to $16.99. Other lunch options include a croque monsieur sandwich, a pretzel roll and a ham or turkey croissant.
Customers can sit at tables located by the shop’s entrances, which are divided by a Starbucks coffee shop. Goudy’s has a display fridge with bottled and canned drinks.