Inspirational Cheese Retailers 2025: Cheeses of Muswell hill

Cheeses of Muswell Hill
Location: London
Founder: Morgan McGlynn Carr
Founded: 2009

You might recognise Cheeses of Muswell Hill owner Morgan McGlynn Carr. The bubbly cheese aficionado is a regular on C4’s Sunday Brunch, where she shares her resolute passion for pairings with hosts Tim, Simon, and millions of viewers.

When she’s not behind the camera or working on a cheese-themed book (her last, The Complete Cheese Pairing Cookbook, was a massive hit), Morgan is in her happy place – her tiny (but mighty) shop in London’s Muswell Hill.

It is so much more than a business to Morgan, who cut her teeth working at the cheesemongers as a teenager, having dreamt of being a shopkeeper as a little girl - the store has played a starring role throughout her life. 

Taking on the premises at the tender age of 19, becoming a business owner, only made her fall more head over heels for the industry. “When I started to meet the cheesemakers and producers, learning the heritage, and their stories, I knew my big focus would be to never have cheese in the shop from people I hadn’t had interaction or long conversation with, and that’s still true today,” she says.

A star is born

Being one of the youngest cheesemongers in the UK at the time, Morgan immediately sparked interest, and within two years found herself and Cheeses of Muswell Hill featuring in an hour-long TV special with Nigel Slater. “That was the start of me really being able to bring somewhat of an old traditional shop into the 21st Century, getting people more interested in artisan cheese.”

It was an awards ceremony that clinched her (so far) decade-long relationship with C4. “We were up for Best Shop in Muswell Hill. Me and the girls had gone along very very excited. We were there with our favourite shops – real institutions - and went and won it. We dined out on that free Champagne, running around with our award in the toilets. Then someone came in and said, ‘come out girls’, and the Mayor of London announced the Best Shop in London. We won it –and the first thing I did was drop the award! We had an interview on ITV and by this point I was very tipsy. The next day they (C4) were like, ‘come on Sunday Brunch’.” And the rest is history. “They’re very much like family now. I just love them.”

A unique experience

A visit to Cheeses of Muswell Hill is made all the more special thanks to the stunning property that houses all the goodies within. “It’s a really rare shop,” Morgan explains. “It’s an Edwardian building, and the curved glass is probably worth more than my house. Most of the insurance on the shop is because of that glass.”

At a mere 7m by 2m, it can be described as bijoux, and this, naturally, lends itself to super personal service. “You’d be lucky to get three people in at once,” Morgan laughs. “When you walk in, because of the size, you’re overtaken by cheese in the best possible way. I sometimes say ‘just open the doors’. We don’t need advertising, people follow their nose to us.”

Around 220 to 250 cheeses find their way into the counter – every other inch taken up by specially chosen biscuits, chutneys and other lovely things to pull together a cheeseboard.

Morgan’s cheese obsession, and quest for newness, means the fridge changes all the time, bursting with seasonal and speciality varieties, products she’s personally in love with, and even exclusive cheeses made for the shop. “It’s only the best. I say ‘the nicest of the nice’.”

The split is 50% British and 50% ‘rest of the world’, because Morgan really does scour the cheese universe, feeding her own desire to procure flavours and formats rarely seen in other cheesemongers. There are, of course, the classics from France, Spain and Italy, but on any given day customers might also see cheeses from Norway, Germany and America.

“We have a great rapport with our clients, which means if there is a cheese I love that I think it could be changed or added to, they will make it for me,” she adds. “Things like our pistachio Brie, which is insane. We can say ‘this will work really well’, and a couple of weeks later it’s in the shop.”

Having such strong ties with the people behind the cheeses means a lot to Morgan. “They’ve seen me go through different stages of my life, and I’ve seen them. These are people who came to my wedding. I have very very personal relationships with them.”

Building communities

Being viral on TikTok (with videos getting up to 5 million views) Morgan has managed to, of course, build her customer base. After sharing a clip of her pistachio Brie recently, for example, she says a 17-year-old got in touch, wanting to know the shop’s opening times. “I’ve achieved what I wanted,” she says, “to appeal to so many more people than you’d usually find in a traditional cheese shop”.

That’s not to say regulars (who are, like her suppliers, more like family) are left behind. “We have the doctor who delivered me, the doctor that delivered my baby, old teachers. We’ve got this amazing, melting pot of customers and it’s so exciting. I love it because it does mean standing in the queue could be an 80-year-old waiting for the same cheese they’ve always had, or a teenager looking for something new for a picnic on Hampstead Heath. Sunday Brunch has given me this ridiculously large platform to share my love of cheese with people all over the country and of all different ages, which I’m so grateful for.”