Sweet dreams are made of Le Cheeserie

Cheese lovers will be delighted to know that Le Cheeserie has opened at the newly launched Capital Food Market (formerly Belconnen Fresh Food Market). It’s the brainchild of Melted owners Alex Royds and Alex O’Brien, and they’ve brought former chef Kaitlyn Towner onto the team for this latest venture.

When the Capital Food Market team approached Alex Royds, they were initially looking at a second Melted location. But Alex wanted to make sure that it reflected the culinary diversity of the market.

“I knew that if we were going to have a Melted shop here, I wanted everything to be sourced from the markets,” he told Region.

“So first I wanted to know who was running the cheese shop. And when they said they didn’t have one yet, I put my hand up and said, ‘That’s what I want to do!'”

The cheese fridge runs the length of the store and contains a mouth-watering array ranging from a huge piece of gruyere to oozy rounds of goat’s cheese. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by choice, feel free to ask for a taste (Alex jokes that they’re a bit like an ice cream shop). Having customers taste test a few options is a great way of determining their palate and finding the cheeses they will love.

Le Cheeserie also sells a few different toasted sandwich options, and all are excellent (as you’d expect from the Melted team!) Alex explained that at Melted, they usually have a base cheese blend that they use for several different toasties, but at Le Cheeserie, the cheese comes first.

“Melting cheese will change the flavour of it, so I choose the cheese I want to showcase and then work backwards from there. It’s kind of the opposite of how we design toasties at Melted.”

I can recommend the blue cheese and fig jam toastie. The addition of mozzarella softened the sharpness of the blue and the whole combination is extraordinarily delicious.

As new operators, Alex and Kaitlyn are still tasting their way through cheeses of the world and Australia and regularly offer different cheeses in the cabinet. Alex is excited about the artisan, alpine-style cheeses from Section 28 in the Adelaide Hills. Kaitlyn showed off a cheese from Tasmanian makers Grandvewe, which also makes spirits from the whey of their sheep’s milk cheeses. Their Gin Herbalist cheese is coated with the spent native botanicals from their gin, making this a closed-loop product with no waste!

When it comes to assembling the perfect cheese board, the team can offer expert advice. While the classic cheese board often has a combination of hard, soft and blue cheeses, Kaitlyn explained that the best cheese boards offer something a little different as well.

“Depending on what you like, you can also add something like a sheep or goat’s milk cheese. Then, add some quince paste or chutney. Quince paste, in particular, I find works best with hard cheeses,” she explained.

She says it’s generally best to use plain biscuits or crackers rather than flavoured ones, which can overwhelm the cheese. But there are some good ways to pair flavoured crackers with particular cheeses.

Le Cheeserie is focusing on the finest examples of cheeses from around the world and across Australia.

“Australian cheeses generally follow the styles of more traditional cheeses you’d find overseas, but we have some really weird and funky ones, too.

“We wanted to make sure that we’re offering cheeses that are a bit harder to find or just phenomenal.”

Le Cheeserie is located at Capital Food Market, 10 Market Street Belconnon. They are open from 8 am to 6 pm, Wednesday to Sunday.
Follow Le Cheeserie on Facebook or Instagram.