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Three Hong Kong cheese shops selling Gouda, Brie and other fine European cheeses for less
- Far from Hong Kong Island’s expensive stores, three specialised outlets in Sai Kung sell high-quality cheeses from Europe at comparably cheap prices
- Cheese From Far’s founder Ronald Massink says there’s a story behind every cheese, such as the French cheese that Napoleon supposedly hated
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Feral cattle ambling through weekend traffic jams are a common sight in Sai Kung, a peninsula in Hong Kong’s New Territories. Nobody milks the cows, of course, but cheese is nevertheless one of the town’s attractions.
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Turophiles (also known as cheese fanciers) make the trek there to visit three specialised outlets that import high quality cheeses. You won’t find them in the supermarkets, and they are far cheaper than comparable quality cheeses found in food halls in the city’s business districts.
The high cost of shopping in these places was one of the things that nudged the proprietors of Cheese From Far, in Sai Kung’s town centre, and Le Magasin, in the Old Town, into cheese-mongering in the first place.
“I was buying cheese from big specialist stores like City’super and Great, and I was a little shocked by the prices,” says Frenchman Jean-Charles Radaelli, who founded Le Magasin in Stanley in 2008, relocating the operation to Sai Kung in 2014. It has recently moved into more spacious premises, with a tasting room that overlooks the typhoon shelter.
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“The original idea was to have a shop filled with French products, including cutlery, ceramics, tablecloths and so on. Then, little by little, all those things became secondary. What I was selling most of was wine and cheese,” he recalls.
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