Aimee P.
Yelp
This is an adorable cheese shop in a charming little neighborhood off Rue de Bac. You can smell it from a few doors down, and if you're at all into cheese, you can't help but to be drawn in by this delightfully pungent alcove.
However, this is a horrible place for somebody just attempting to navigate through the cheeses of France for the first time. They don't offer samples, and can't really cut small pieces of most of their cheeses for you to purchase. So basically, you buy a large quantity of expensive cheese that you may hate, or you leave wondering if you'd missed out.
Several cheese shops I'd discovered upon subsequent days in Paris were far more accommodating to the raw cheese novice, giving me an opportunity to experience a cheese before I committed to smuggling some home in my luggage.
We selected small portions of a few of the cheeses, but were a bit put off by the size of the "small" cuts we'd requested (about three table charcuterie plates worth). No problem, insisted the lady helping us. You'll finish this in no time! This isn't like American cheese! You will walk around all morning then be hungry and it will be gone before you even think about lunch!
Ummm....okay.
We did not, in fact, end up finishing the cheese before lunch. In fact, I carried it in my purse in the walk down Champs-Elysées, at the end of which we sampled the cheese. Then through lunch, after which we had an impromptu formage course and and concluded it by deciding that after walking it around Paris in my purse, the last third of it would probably have to go to waste. Though we did try to power through it, the hard cheese lasted in the hotel fridge until about two days later, when we finally cut our losses (though it was perhaps only a fifth of the original "samples" that we tossed). Gone in no time indeed.
We ended up paying about 8 euro for two "small sample" pieces of cheese to try. It felt pretty expensive compared to other cheese shops we visited later. Also, no photos allowed in the store.
Still, the selection is fantastic, and the cheese monger is knowledgeable. Not recommended for anybody who's a French cheese novice. Try the Lafayette market instead, if you can't find one of those alley market type cheese shops (don't even remember the name, and none of the employees even spoke English, is how legit it was! Still, they were charming and more than happy to offer samples).
