If you are planning on making a cheese-centric trip to experience ALL the cheese New York City has to offer, you can fuggedaboutit. In order to experience all the cheese NYC has to offer, you’d have to move here, and even then, with years of opportunity, you still may be barely scratching the rind. While most towns on earth hope for a single, well-stocked Whole Foods for their fancy cheese needs, or maybe a wine store with some adjacent, cultured dairy provisions, NYC boasts not only a worthy cheese shop in every borough, but just about every neighborhood, not to mention excellent cheese programs curated in local grocers such as Fairway Market and Zabar’s.
You could approach New York’s cheese scene by trying to answer an important question: what kind of cheese lover are you? Are you all about shopping? Learning? Dining? Are you a seeker of cheese plates, cheese classes, or culturally specific cheese experiences? Is a blow-your-mind mac and cheese on your must-do list, an unimaginably gooey pizza, or perhaps a Georgian khachapuri: a freshly baked bread bowl drowning with molten farmer’s cheese? (If the latter wasn’t already on your list, I hope it is now.)
Listen, it’s a Sisyphean task to try to summarize this. I know, because I’ve lived here for 20 years, and the assignment is giving me angina. My introduction to cheese in New York City was by way of 8th Street Wine Cellar, a cozy wine bar in Greenwich Village that offers an elegant, daily cheese plate of 3 or 5 selections. It was Cypress Grove’s Midnight Moon that hooked me there, and I’ve been chasing cheese ever since. Now, despite my ongoing appreciation for it, 8th Street doesn’t even come close to making my NYC best-of list for cheese lovers, because there are just too many important places to choose from. (But seriously, go there if you’re in the West Village.) I could create a neighborhood-by-neighborhood best-of list, (and maybe I will,) and I’m sure I’d hear about some important place I egregiously left out. Heck, I could do a Bleecker Street for Cheese Lovers, and still have to edit the list for space.
With that incredibly long disclaimer, here are 7 mandatory (mostly Manhattan) places to visit in New York City for cheese lovers.
Murray’s Cheese
Speaking of Bleecker Street, that is as good a place as any to start, because that’s where a NYC cheese pilgrimage must begin. Murray’s isn’t the oldest retail cheese operation in New York, but it is the largest. Whether that necessarily makes it the most important, the pilgrimage to Murray’s is necessary, and given the time and day, you may run into one of the local West Village food tour operations which includes the store among its many worthy stops. Murray’s Cheese has been at it since 1962 and remains one of the largest cheese retailers in the country, offering hundreds of selections at its flagship location. (Murray’s also has a sizable outpost in Grand Central Station, and you can also find Murray’s cheeses in Kroger stores throughout the country.)
In addition to its deep cheese selection, Murray’s also offers an impressive collection of charcuterie and cheese-adjacent condiments—get yourself a Pralus Chocolatier’s Pistachio Infernal Bar to pair with some Herve Mons 1924 Bleu and and thank me later— as well as numerous weekly classes in its upstairs education annex. (Where you may find yours truly as an educator for cheese and beverage pairing classes.)
So long as you’re on Bleecker Street, and (presumably) a cheese/dairy lover, you might have a bite at next-door Murray’s Mac & Cheese, grab an old-school New York pizza slice at John’s, or grab a cone at (what else?) Cones.
Bedford Cheese Shop
I have it on good (nameless) authority that some Murray’s mongers like to spend their own money at Bedford Cheese Shop, for a solid selection that rotates more frequently, and also goes a little deeper in the stinkers category. (A recent visit revealed adventurous stinkers such as Tulip Tree Creamery Foxglove, Cabricharme, and Torta del Casar.) Bedford Cheese Shop’s story begins in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, where many cool NY stories begin. Founded in 2003 by Jason Scherr and Jason Jeffries to bring artisanal cheese to what was then an up-and-coming neighborhood (no doubt made cool by the introduction of cheese), Bedford Cheese Shop expanded in 2018 to Gramercy Park, which is now their sole location, operated by additional co-owners Christina Earle and Samantha Fantauzzi, along with GM Katelind Kuhn. (Notably, BCS also profiles all of their cheesemongers on their website, which is a nice, personal touch.)
In addition to the requisite cheese accoutrements for purchase, Bedford also has a small cafe operation where one might sit with a cheese board or sandwich from their cheese-forward chalkboard menu.
Saxelby Cheesemongers
If you’re someone who hears the words “American Cheese” and immediately thinks “Pleasant Ridge Reserve” rather than “Kraft Singles”, then Saxelby Cheesemongers in Chelsea Market—a worthy food tourism destination unto itself—is the place for you. The late Anne Saxelby began Saxelby’s as a cupboard-sized stall in the Lower East Side’s Essex Market in 2006, as the first all-American artisanal cheese shop in the United States. (Parmigiano Reggiano remains the only import available, for its inability to be replicated by any other cheesemaking country on earth.) Saxelby’s lives on after Anne’s untimely death in 2021, continually dedicated to championing America’s great cheesemakers, and Saxelby’s is an ideal place to sample a variety of American cheese creations from long standing cheesemakers such as Jasper Hill, as well as newer and smaller operations.
Occupying a neat corner in the downstairs annex of Chelsea Market, a visit to Saxelby neighbors Buon’Italia for some harder-to-get Italian selections or Dickson’s Farmstand Meats for locally made charcuterie makes the trip all the more worthy.
French Cheese Board
The French Cheese Board is dedicated to all things France: not only its celebrated cheeses, such as Époisses, Mimolette, and Saint Nectaire, but decadent butters and elegant mustards as well. (When shipping delays made French cheeses all but unavailable to typical retailers in New York, FCB still had the goods.) Located in a brand-new space on Spring Street in Soho, the FCB is an oasis in a posh neighborhood of otherwise non-cheese related shopping, with its spacious, industrial vibe.
The FCB is also the only place where one may have a truly immersive cheese experience, (since a cheese spa doesn’t yet exist,) with its gallery of recently commissioned NFTs and virtual reality lab. (This is real, and this is worth it.)
Casa Della Mozzarella
If you are in New York City and consider yourself a cheese lover, if you don’t at least try to visit a place called the “house of mozzarella,” then did your visit even count? The Bronx’s Arthur Avenue is the real Little Italy of NYC, lined with purveyors of traditional Italian goods of every imaginable category. Go to Casa Della Mozzarella for the minutes old-mozzarella made by father and son team Orazio and Carlo Carciotto, stay for the rest of the Italian cheese selection, or the epic sandwiches that employ said mozzarella, (not to mention the burrata,) toward one of its most magnificent purposes other than pizza.
If a trip up to the Bronx isn’t in your cards, Italian wonderland Eataly also has a worthy cheese counter, or try Hudson Yard’s Mercato Little Spain for the same effect, Spanish-style.
Casellula
New York is fortunate, because of its excellent cheese retail culture, to have a plethora of restaurants where one might find a laudable cheese plate on the menu. If I had to pick just one, though (which I don’t, but again, I’d like to submit this list before I retire), it would be Hell’s Kitchen’s legendary cheese and wine cafe, Casellula. (Note intentional order of words.) Opened in 2007 with a cheese program then curated by cheese goddess and author Tia Keenan, the particular thrill of Casellula is in its brilliant cheese boards whose already interesting cheese selections all come with their own individual, highly original adornment: creamed spinach, cashew brittle, deviled quail eggs, and pickled string beans have all made appearances.
So long as you’re in Hell’s Kitchen, a trip to Balkan cheese dream Kashkaval Garden for fondue is also in order, and then you can just hop the N train to Astoria to visit some of my other favorite cheese plate places, twin bars Astoria Bier & Cheese and Bier & Cheese Collective.
Chama Mama
Of course I wasn’t going to leave you hanging on the Georgian cheese bread thing. While pizza and mac and cheese are dishes you’re going to run into all over the place in NYC whether you’re seeking them out or not, khachapuri requires a little extra effort. (Your effort will be handsomely rewarded, however, with one of the most decadent pools of salty cheese ever to be encased in a bread boat.) If you can’t make it down to southern Brooklyn to immerse yourself in the Georgian enclave around Sheepshead Bay or Bensonhurst, Manhattan boasts no fewer than 9 restaurants that offer khachapuri. My vote goes to Chama Mama: a well-located and worthy tavern on 14th Street with a spacious back patio perfect for noshing on cheese bread while enjoying a sip or two from their deep selection of amber, Georgian wines.