Inspirational Cheese Retailers 2025: Gershon & Sons

Some of Gerson & Sons founder, Katherine Gershon’s, earliest memories revolve around cheese. On the beach in Cornwall, eating a slice of Red Leicester with Branston Pickle as a child. Or family holidays in France as a teen, where she and her sister (both learning French at school) were dispatched to buy croissants, exploring boulangeries and fromageries along the way.

Katherine’s passion for travel and food ultimately led her to a career in the travel industry, but when the Covid lockdowns hit “it was like groundhog day”. 

With spare time on her hands, Katherine says, she decided to learn more about her other love – cheese - taking on the Academy of Cheese Level 1 course, and doing occasional work for other local cheesemongers. “Opening my own shop was going to be ‘kill or cure’,” she recalls. “Then I saw Dame Deborah James, the Bowelbabe, doing her final interview on the BBC, saying you only get one life, life is precious. I watched that on the Friday, and by Monday I’d put an offer on this shop. The rest is history!”

The shop would be nothing, she adds, without the support and help of her ‘guardian angel’, Alan Hayes of Capital Refrigeration Services. “Alan came and designed and installed the cheese counter for me. It was no mean feat. The shop’s been an apothecary since the 16th Century, and the door’s only 68cms wide. Alan had to take out the window to get the counter in. Thank God for him, because this never would have happened otherwise.”

A beautiful experience

Katherine says she’s very lucky that, not only is she positioned amongst several other brilliant independents, but she’s also endowed with such a visually appealing shop. “Because it’s an old apothecary we have beautiful cupboards, several hundreds of years old, around the shop with Latin written across them.”

All that rich heritage has been preserved, while giving the premises a contemporary twist – from a bold navy colour scheme, to the striking Italian glass counter. “You get that real contrast between feeling like you’re walking into an old shop, and a modern-day approach,” Katherine explains.

She’s worked long and hard to source the cheese selection at Gershon & Sons, and is proud that customers are returning over and over again not only for the cheese, but for the service.

“Everyone who works for me is brilliant,” Katherine says. “Someone might come in and say, ‘help, I’ve got a dinner party for 12 and I don’t know how much cheese to buy’, or, ‘my daughter’s got a French boyfriend, what should I serve them?’, or they might be gluten free. We pride ourselves on being able to help solve their problems.”

A world of cheese

The counter split between British and continental cheeses at Gershon & Sons is about 60/40 - erring on the side of European varieties. “If I could eat one country’s cheese for the rest of my life I would choose France,” Katherine reveals. “I’m a huge champion of British, and I really believe in supporting small producers and farms, but if you miss out continental cheeses, you’re losing out on sales. If people come to you and you don’t sell Comté, Gruyère and Taleggio, they’ll walk out and go to the supermarket!”

She works as closely as possible with specialist suppliers, or direct with makers if she can. “When we opened, Ballylisk was winning awards. I called up Mark Wright, who makes the cheeses, and said, ‘I really like them, who can I buy from?’, and he said, ‘me’. I’ve sold all his cheeses since day one, and I’m hugely proud to be one of the only places in the Southeast you can buy them apart from Fortnums.”

That’s one of the things she enjoys most about being a cheesemonger. “When I phone up a producer tell them I’d like to sell their cheese, sometimes they’ll tell you, ‘buy it from XYZ’, and other times they’re willing to work with you and help you. Orders for cheese from Ballylisk were up 20% last year. Customers can’t get enough of it. It’s nice having something different you can’t buy in most British cheesemongers, let alone supermarkets.”

Working with the seasons

Consumers don’t often realise some cheeses are seasonal. This is something the team like to educate shoppers about at Gershon & Sons. And it’s always wonderful to know there are certain varieties to look forward to at particular times of year. “In winter we might have more Beaufort and Raclette. In summer more Alp Blossom. Jumi have a cheese called Mountain Meadows with grasses and tiny blue Alpine flowers on the outside – that looks very pretty if you’re going on a picnic or doing a summery cheeseboard. They also have a wild garlic cheese that’s not available now because it’s seasonal. People still show up asking for it.”

There’s something lovely about championing seasonal cheeses, Katherine adds. “It makes them more special.”

Though there are some concessions to her method - one being scooping Gorgonzola. “Two years ago I decided to stop selling it in October. I was like, ‘it’s a summer cheese’. But there was practically a riot in the shop!”

That’s the other thing she finds interesting about being a cheesemonger. You really do have to listen to your regulars. “So, I’m on the fence about chilli cheese, but when you’ve got 10 customers asking for it, you need to stop saying ‘no’ and sending them back to the supermarket. Instead, I sourced a beautiful Spanish heese with red pepper, made with milk from the same sheep used for Roquefort. It’s got nice vibrant streaks through it and it’s so much more interesting than a very processed chilli cheese! Ultimately, it’s the customers who decide what we buy.”