Cow
The long keepers. Cloth-bound Cheddars, alpine wheels and the blues: sweet, savoury and built to age for years.
Fossdyke Cloth Cheddar · Comté · Hartside Blue
Ripened down here
Farmhouse cheese from seven makers in Yorkshire, Somerset and the Jura, finished in the cellar under our shop and cut to order at the counter on Example Street.
This week’s wheels
Fossdyke Cloth Cheddar£38.40 / kg
Eleven degrees and a lot of patience
Young wheels come straight from the farms and go downstairs. We wash the rinds, brush them, turn every wheel by hand and taste each one with an iron until it is ready: three weeks for a goat’s log, two years for a cloth-bound Cheddar.
- Temperature
- 11 °C, all year
- Humidity
- 92 per cent
- Turned
- Every Thursday, by hand
On the counter this week
Everything is cut from the whole wheel while you wait, from 100 g. Prices are per kilo; ask for a taste of anything before you buy.
Order for collection-
Fossdyke Cloth Cheddar£38.40 / kg
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Hartside Blue£34.00 / kg
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Comté, Mont Vachère£42.00 / kg
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Ashgrove Crottin£4.20 each
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Wensley Ewe£44.00 / kg
What the cellar does
Cheese leaves the farm young. The last weeks or months decide how it tastes, and they happen forty steps below the shop.
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Step 1
Arrive
Wheels come in from the makers at a few weeks old and rest for a day before anyone touches them.
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Step 2
Wash and brush
Washed rinds get a brine wipe twice a week; natural rinds are brushed so the moulds stay even.
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Step 3
Turn
Every Thursday each wheel is turned by hand, so the moisture stays even through the paste.
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Step 4
Taste with an iron
We pull a core with a cheese iron, taste it and put the plug back. Nothing goes upstairs before it’s right.
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Step 5
Bring it up
Ready wheels go up to the counter, where they are cut to order and wrapped in waxed paper.
Three milks, three tempers
The milk sets a cheese’s character long before the cellar does. Ask at the counter and we’ll cut you a sliver of each.
Ewe
Richer and nuttier, with more fat and a sweetness that turns to caramel as the wheel ages.
Wensley Ewe · Coombe Tomme · Old Ewe Pecorino
Goat
Bright, lemony and best young: ash-dusted logs, crottins and the odd round wrapped in a chestnut leaf.
Ashgrove Crottin · Ashgrove Log · Leaf-wrapped round
Cut to order, wrapped in paper
We cut from the wheel while you watch, weigh it in front of you and wrap it in waxed paper. Cling film suffocates a rind; paper lets it breathe.
- For a board
- Around 100 g a person, across three cheeses.
- As the main event
- 150 g a person, with bread and something sharp.
- At home
- In its paper, in the salad drawer, for up to two weeks.
- Before eating
- Out of the fridge an hour ahead, still wrapped.
Seven farms we buy from
We buy whole wheels straight from the people who make them, and visit every farm at least once a year to taste in their own cellars.
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Fossdyke Farm
Swaledale, North Yorkshire
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Hartside Dairy
Teesdale, County Durham
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Ashgrove Goats
The Mendips, Somerset
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Fruitière de Mont Vachère
Haut-Jura, France
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Wensley Fold
Wensleydale, North Yorkshire
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High Lathe
Nidderdale, North Yorkshire
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Coombe Bottom
The Quantocks, Somerset
Thursdays in the cellar
Once a month we set a long table between the shelves and taste our way through one idea. Bread, pickles and a matched glass are included.
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14 seats £38 Book a seat
Alpine wheels, young to old
Four Comtés, from eight to thirty months.
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14 seats £36 Book a seat
Blue, three ways
A cow’s blue, a sheep’s blue and a soft goat’s blue.
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14 seats £36 Book a seat
Cloth and wax
Why a cloth-bound Cheddar tastes the way it does.
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14 seats £34 Book a seat
Goats in winter
Late-season goat’s milk and what the cellar does with it.
The cellar club
A parcel on the first Friday of every month: whatever is best in the cellar right now, cut that morning, with notes from whoever turned it.
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Board
Three cheeses, about 750 g, with oatcakes and a jar of chutney.
Every month£39
Join with Board -
Cellar
Five cheeses, about 1.2 kg, always including one small whole wheel.
Every month£62
Join with Cellar
Pause or cancel any month. Free delivery in York; £6.50 by next-day courier anywhere else in mainland UK.
Questions at the counter
Anything else, ask us in the shop or by email.
Do you post cheese?
Yes: Tuesday to Thursday, by next-day courier in insulated boxes, anywhere in mainland UK. We don’t post on Fridays, so nothing sits in a depot over the weekend.
How long will it keep?
Hard cheeses keep two to three weeks in their paper in the salad drawer; soft and fresh cheeses about a week. Re-wrap in fresh paper if the old one turns greasy.
Can you cut a whole wheel for a wedding?
Gladly: stacked wheels, whole cheeses and long boards for any number of guests. Give us two weeks’ notice for the big wheels.
Is it all raw-milk cheese?
Most of it, and every label says which. If you’re pregnant or avoiding raw milk, ask and we’ll point you to the pasteurised ones.
Do you have vegetarian cheeses?
About half the counter uses vegetarian rennet, and the label strip says so.
Can I bring my own containers?
Yes. We weigh your box first and cut straight into it.
Come downstairs
The shop is on Example Street, a few doors from the river. On Saturdays the cellar is open for a look: just ask at the counter.
- Address
- 1 Example Street, York YO1 0ZZ
- Hours
- Tuesday to Friday 9.30–18.00
Saturday 9.00–17.30
Sunday 10.00–16.00, closed Monday - Phone
- 01904 000 000
- hello@affina.example
