Cheese Talk with Patricia Michelson

La Fromagerie wouldn’t be the business it is today if I hadn’t fallen – literally – in love with Beaufort Chalet d’Alpage. That was in 1990 – but way before that, in 1978, as a young family we went on a road trip around France delving into French culture and food; mesmerised by the sights, sounds and smells of food markets, cheese shops and Epicerie Fine galore. Fast forward to 2019 and I still find the exact same cheese shops and markets operating as if time has stood still. Is that good? In some ways yes because it shows how confident a food culture is when you respect the traditions and regionality.

Each year my family tries to have a holiday en-famille – renting a farmhouse in Provence. I visit the beautifully kept boutique fromagerie in St Remy where perfect local, bright and tempting goat cheeses sit alongside wedges of hard and blue cheeses. Monique, la patronne, is a force to be reckoned with – do not get on her wrong side – and now she has a few tables outside where you can enjoy a degustation with a glass of local wine – her nod to the new ideas. However, there is a younger and more enterprising group entering the scene and their voices are loud in not only preserving a culture which has over the last few years appeared to be looking a little threadbare around the edges, but also bringing a fresh point of view to the way they sell cheese. Paris is the place to go if you want to see both traditional and new wave – it’s not something that has been pulled out of a hat by the French, but rather by seeing what is going on in other cities like London and New York.

I always remember, back in the early noughties a group of French cheesemongers came to visit us in our Marylebone shop and amongst them was Philippe Olivier – a man I have revered since starting my business and we buy direct his Northern French speciality cheeses, too. He remarked how different our way of selling cheese was compared to France, that having an eating area within the shop was a great way of celebrating produce and he hoped others would follow by example. In Paris you can see Fromagerie Beaufils in the edgy area of Belleville, where Christophe Lesoin tends his farmhouse cheeses that also include a smattering of fine English, Italian, Belgium, Spanish, Greek and even farmhouse US varieties. He regularly visits cheesemakers and brings lovely stories to his customers. His ambition has encouraged those who have worked with him to open their own shops to interpret cheesemongering in their way.

Emmanuel Carbonne’s elegant minimalist Au Lait Cru in the smart 18th district has a clear message: to find only small production raw milk cheese to showcase in his shop, especially those from Brittany where cheesemaking is being brought to life by young entrepreneurs new to cheesemaking or, like Charlotte Salat making a breakaway de-classified Salers. Then there is Alex Renault who has just opened his shop C-O-W (Cheeses of the World) on Boulevard St Germain; what a brave way of challenging the old guard of French cheesemongering! He is taking it to the next level by selling the very best farmhouse cheeses from everywhere – and will no doubt be including Japan, Australia and New Zealand too I am sure.

Whether you love the crusty traditionalists or the new wave explorers, France has definitely woken up when it comes to selling cheese not just from their own regions but also from the wider world. Entente Cordiale indeed!