Love cheese? How about an all-you-can-eat month-long series of cheese events in Pick & Cheese Covent Garden and The Cheese Bar Camden, supporting small scale cheesemakers and the ‘Eat Out Help Out’ scheme?
All you can Cheese
From 8th August, Mathew Carver, founder of London’s cult cheese restaurants – Pick & Cheese, The Cheese Bar and The Cheese Barge – and champion of British Cheese, will be inviting diners to #EatMoreBritishCheese, hosting a month-long series of all-you-can-eat cheese events, all in the name of supporting small scale cheesemakers.
Pick & Cheese at Seven Dials Market will be loading up its famous conveyor belt, offering diners the opportunity to eat all the cheese and charcuterie they like for £20 per person. Those who dine on a Monday will also benefit from the governments ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ scheme with the bottomless cheese costing only £10 per person.
What’s on the Menu?
The special month-long menu will include dishes from cheesemakers Mathew feels passionate about supporting: Rosary Goats’ Cheese stuffed mini Doughnut with Rosemary Honey; Spenwood with Cherry and Amaretto Jam and Fen Farm’s Baron Bigod with marinated Sweet Garlic. Charcuterie plates available to try include Crown & Queue’s Devils Mortar and Tempus Food’s Achari Salami.
The Cheese Bar in Camden will be bringing back their sell-out Bottomless Raclette Nights every Wednesday evening, serving unlimited plates of hot melted Ogleshield cheese (an English version of Swiss Raclette cheese), served a-top of Cornish new potatoes, Crown & Queue glazed ham and cornichons (with a veg option available too). The weekly event will also take advantage of the government scheme, offering the bottomless Raclette for just £9 per person (normal price £18pp) and aims to support cheesemaker Jamie Montgomery, with whom The Cheese Bar have a longstanding relationship, after he was left with tonnes of Ogleshield cheese when the majority of orders destined for London’s top restaurants were cancelled during the hospitality lockdown.
To celebrate the month and to remind cheese lovers just how important it is to #EatMoreBritishCheese, The Cheese Bar has teamed up with illustrator Yeye Weller to release a limited-edition print. Available to purchase from the 1st August and with just 100 copies up for grabs, the print, priced at £50, will include a £5 donation to the Got Milk fund, which works in partnership with FareShare to re-distribute surplus dairy produce to food banks and community kitchens around the UK.
How lockdown affected the Farmhouse Cheese Industry
Since the government ordered the shutdown of hospitality and leisure businesses, the farmhouse cheese industry has been hugely impacted, with small cheese producers seeing wholesale orders virtually disappear overnight. Thus, producers have found themselves with a mountain of cheese that will go to waste if not eaten before the summer is out. Born from the desire to not see a morsel of cheese go uneaten, the bottomless cheese nights will utilise this surplus stock and help producers get back on their feet.
Mathew says,
“We couldn’t be happier to finally re-open the doors to our restaurants after a long four months! However, the struggle isn’t over and knowing our beloved cheesemakers are sitting on copious amounts of cheese, we knew we had to do something special to help them sell it! By taking advantage of the “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme and the VAT cut to make the numbers stack up on bottomless cheese, I’m so excited to offer our customers exceptional value whilst also showing support to the incredible cheesemakers we work with.”
Booking
Bottomless plates at Pick & Cheese will run Friday – Monday throughout August. All bookings are for a maximum of 1hr 15 mins and are priced at £20pp (£10pp on Mon with the Eat Out to Help Out scheme).
Bottomless Raclette at The Cheese Bar will run every Wednesday evening in August. All bookings are for a maximum of 1hr 30 mins and are priced at £9pp as part of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme (usually £18pp).
For bookings visit https://www.thecheesebar.com/