Hand-Selected in London: Four British Farmhouse Cheeses
Four wheels of British farmhouse cheese arrived in our case this week. Elyse Hoang, our deli manager & cheese buyer, picked them by hand in London. She has run the deli since 2021 and was a chef before she was a cheesemonger.
In late June, Elyse spent four days with Neal’s Yard Dairy, the London company that has supplied our counter since the 1990s. “I didn’t really understand Neal’s Yard until I went there,” she says. They don’t make cheese. They age it. Several times a month they drive out to small farms across Britain to choose wheels, then bring them back to Bermondsey, to aging rooms built into the brick arches under the railway. Everyone calls the place the Arches. Trains run over the top. Wheels age on wooden planks, floor to ceiling.
The farms Neal’s Yard buys from are small, and the cheeses are old regional styles, some of them nearly gone. “Their mission is to keep British territorial cheeses alive,” Elyse says. “It’s backbreaking work, and the craftsmanship is dying. These families have been doing it for generations.”
Once a year, Neal’s Yard brings its makers to the Arches. The week Elyse visited, more than 10 of them set up tables among the wheels, and she talked with the people who made them. “It felt very personal, even though it was business,” she says. Each cheese she wanted sat in three or four batches on the planks. “It’s the same cheese from the same maker, but every batch is so, so different.” She tasted a wheel from every batch and picked the ones for our case.
One pick was settled before she left Seattle. Nate Plutko, a DeLaurenti co-owner, sent her for a wheel of Isle of Mull, his favorite cheese in the world. Jeff and Chris Reade moved 500 miles north from Somerset in 1982, rebuilt a derelict farm on a Scottish island, and began making clothbound cheese from their own herd. At 55 pounds, Elyse’s pick was the biggest wheel she brought home.
The Westcombe Cheddar comes from the Calver family, whose Somerset farm has made cheddar since the late 1800s. They made block cheddar for decades, then returned to cloth in 1999. Yoredale is the young one, a Wensleydale from Ben and Sam Spence, who left careers in finance to build a small dairy in the Yorkshire valley the old maps call Yoredale. The Lincolnshire Poacher comes from the Jones family, on the same land since 1917. They make it with their own herd’s milk, to a recipe that crosses cheddar with the mountain cheeses of the Alps.
It was the deli’s second trip of the year. In February, cheesemonger Tyler Wilbourne traveled to Finca Sierra la Solana in La Mancha to work alongside the crew that makes Manchego 1605.
“English cheeses get a really bad rap for being strong and dry and crumbly,” Elyse says. Don’t believe it. These are styles hundreds of years old, built on raw milk, cloth and time, and the flavors and textures have nuance and breadth that only smell and taste can do justice to.
They’re best at room temperature. Cold mutes the flavors. In the Arches, Elyse learned to sample cheese the way the mongers do. She crumbles off a piece and rubs it between her fingers until it warms and starts to give, then eats a chunk, not a sliver, for the full body of the cheese. “How it chews and melts is what makes English cheeses really special,” she says.
Come in and taste it the way it’s meant to be served, from someone who knows why these wheels are some of the most sought-after cheeses in the world.
In the case now
Isle of Mull. Aged 12 to 16 months. Pale and firm, almost fondant in texture. Zesty fruit up front, then boozy depth and a savory finish, with a complex sweetness underneath. Good with Scotch.
Westcombe Cheddar. Aged 12 to 16 months. The balanced one. Silky and creamy for a cheddar, with juicy acidity and a warm flavor that lingers. It all but melts in the mouth. Classic with dry cider.
Yoredale Wensleydale. Aged 3 to 5 months. Milky and buttery, with a clean, fresh acidity that keeps the richness in check. It breaks into tender nuggets rather than slices. Crumble it over a salad with ripe pears.
Lincolnshire Poacher. Aged 20 to 24 months. The oldest in the case, firm and dry yet supple, with a finish that keeps going. Ours leans warm and nutty with a slight sweetness. It melts beautifully.