21 July 2022, 07:24 AM
  • John Muller, senior cheese buyer at Bayley & Sage, reveals his top cheese pairing ideas with Speciality Food
5 cheese pairing ideas with John Muller, Bayley & Sage

What’s on your dream cheeseboard?
We always say that four or five cheeses are the ideal combination to make a perfect cheeseboard. For the summer season, we would recommend Wigmore, Capriflicon, Comte, Roquefort, and Manchego.

What’s your all-time favourite cheese pairing?
Fresh grapes, figs, and crusty bread, a white burgundy, a really good saucisson cut wafer thin, quince paste, grilled artichokes, some greek olives, perhaps a sweet white wine to wash it down, a hand full of almonds as well… and definitely a big tree and a blue sky, sat beneath the sun.

Any unusual pairings you’d recommend?
I think fruits, picked ripe in the summer, are just about the best thing to eat with cheese, from a field, or the wild, or an orchard, it isn’t particularly unusual, but it’s magical. Also, it suggests a place, and an experience and that is the best thing to pair with anything, other than good company. So ripe mulberries, and goat’s cheese. That works for me.

What do you love to drink with cheese?
By nature, cheese is versatile, so for most things you can drink you can find a cheese to go with it. In a lot of ways, the versatility and vastness of cheese is its beauty.

What must-have cheese kit would you recommend?
A board and a knife, and your favourite piece of cheese! The rest you can improvise with.