Britain’s best cheesemongers: The Bristol Cheesemonger

In the year Rosie spent at St Nicholas Street, the opportunity came up for Rosie to open another shop at Bristol’s Wapping Wharf, a trendy new development home to bars, restaurants and shops. Not wanting to split her time between two different sites, Rosie chose to move location completely. ‘I’ve been here nearly a year now and it’s going fantastically well,’ she explains. ‘It’s such a lovely area and it’s allowed me to develop the business even further, extending my opening hours and getting more cheeses in.’

Rosie sources her cheeses direct, paying the producers weekly visits to ensure the very best quality. Most of what she stocks comes from Somerset, but she’s been gradually expanding her area to include Devon and Cornwall, and gets the odd piece of Hafod Cheddar from Wales and wheels of Rollright from Oxfordshire. ‘There’s such a wonderful selection locally but it’s great to be able to widen the radius to other counties,’ she says. ‘As time goes on I’m hoping to get another member of staff in, which will leave me free to visit even more cheesemakers. But we will always stock predominantly South West varieties as I have the closest relationships with the people there.’

It’s obvious that for someone to give up their day job and open a cheese shop, they have to be borderline obsessed with cheese. But what is it that Rosie loves about it in particular? ‘It’s just such a varied product,’ she explains. ‘It all starts from milk, but then there are so many factors that shape the end product. The time of year, what the cows have been eating, starter cultures, bacteria in the air, the cheesemakers’ process – all of these variables can have a huge impact. It’s a bit like wine, which all starts from grapes, and in the UK there are so many new cheeses coming out all the time that it never gets boring.’

Rosie’s shop might be small, but she’s managed to curate a fantastic selection of cheese for the people of Bristol. And while they might initially pay her a visit for the cheese, it’s no doubt Rosie’s enthusiasm for and knowledge of what she sells that keeps them coming back.