In the past few years, the UK has enjoyed an incredible renaissance in artisan cheesemaking, and the number of dedicated cheese shops has increased to accommodate this. But what makes a cheese shop stand out from the rest? Rosie Morgan, who set up The Bristol Cheesemonger just two years ago, was crowned Best Speciality Cheese Retailer at the 2017 Great British Cheese Awards. Not because she stocks more cheeses than anyone else or has the biggest, brightest shop – she scooped the award purely down to her enthusiasm for the craft and the fact that she runs her business entirely on her own from a shipping container in Bristol’s Wapping Wharf.
‘I got into selling cheese a long time ago, working as a weekend and Saturday girl at a cheese shop called Country Cheeses in Tavistock Devon when I was fifteen,’ she explains. ‘I left to go travelling, then I lived in London for a little while and went to university – but I would always come back to work there whenever I came home because it was such a lovely and inspiring place to be.’
Country Cheeses – which actually won Best Speciality Cheese Retailer the previous year – was the perfect place for any aspiring cheesemonger to learn the ropes, despite being in a relatively rural town. So when Rosie moved to Bristol, she was surprised to find that, while there were many fantastic delis, there wasn’t a single dedicated cheese shop. So she decided to set one up herself to gauge demand.
‘At first I was doing the odd market and pop-up alongside my full-time job, just to see how it was received,’ she says. ‘The support I got from local businesses and the public was immense, and over the next couple of years I kept doing more and more in my spare time. It was when I held a pop-up before Christmas two years ago and did really well that I decided to take the leap and go permanent.’
Rosie’s first bricks-and-mortar site was on St Nicholas Street, in the heart of Bristol’s old town. ‘It was a lovely little place,’ she remembers. ‘Starting your own business is very nerve-wracking but there was just so much support from everyone and it was so well received.’
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Britain’s best cheesemongers: The Bristol Cheesemonger