The pungent smell made our heads turn to that one corner of Seven Dials Market.
“Is it? Is it a sushi train?” I asked Fafa. The prospect of eating sushi on a sushi train in London felt like a delightful idea.
“I think… it looked like… cheese train?”
A cheese train bar? OMG, YES!
We made a beeline to the queue. Pick & Cheese, as the staff explained, is:
the first cheese train bar in the world.
And no, they weren’t available for that day or the weekend. But they were kind enough to give me a cheese postcard and asked me to try to book online at odd hours.
So finally, almost a week later, we stood in the same spot, flashed over the booking confirmation and got seated.
“Have we been here before?” the friendly staff asked.
I said no and went on a tangent about the last week’s no-seat saga, visiting London for a couple of weeks, the fact that we were leaving the day after tomorrow, and how lucky I felt for getting a booking as I was so curious about the cheese train bar.
How does Cheese Train Bar work?
The concept is similar to a sushi train restaurant. You sit on a counter with a belt of plates rotating in front of you, and you pick the ones you want to eat. The price of the food depends on the colours of the plates. In this cheese train bar, the price starts from £3.95 for a cream plate to £6.25 for a yellow plate. You can also order an off-belt menu like grilled cheese and drinks.
Pick and Cheese provide water and crackers free of charge.
What we ordered in Pick and Cheese
Since it was 3 pm and we just had lunch at the Indonesian restaurant Bali Bali around an hour before, we agreed to get three plates each – no colour, therefore price, restrictions.
We started our order with our wine. Tbh, I wasn’t excited about choosing the wine as all the wine I had in London so far had been disappointing, but coming from Aussie, it felt weird to do cheese without wine, so I went with the waiter’s suggestion.
Fafa started with Tempus No. 8 (from Tempus Charcuterie, Weybridge), a soft, fully aged, spreadable salami on bread. The spread was the British interpretation of Nduja (a spread made of pork sausage from Italy). It came with mini dills pickled, one of his all-time fave snacks.
Though not really cheese-focus, it was flavorful, especially paired with the pickles.
Meanwhile, I went with my all-time fave cheese, Gouda. Cornish Gouda (from Giel Spiering, Cornwall) is a hard Gouda with salted caramel and hazelnut flavours. It came with clotted cream fudge as the pairing. This one was definitely cheese-y, but OMG, it could easily be the best combo in town. So rich, so yummy, so perfect.
Still, with half-eaten Gouda left, we moved on to our second choice. I went for the yellow-plated award-winning Bix from Rose Grimond, Oxfordshire. It’s triple cream cheese, described as “rich, luxurious, and buttery! Decadent AF“. Anything that has AF on the menu, I had to try. It came with a scone and lemon curd as the pairing.
It was soft, dreamy and melted in the mouth. The richness of the cheese was softened by the scone and cut by the curtness of the lemon. And yes, it was a cheese worth the “AF” description.
Fafa took St Ella from Chris & Clare Moody, Wiltshire. Paired with Rose Turkish delight, it’s a mould-ripened goats’ cheese in the style of the French Crottin. It was his fave. Though it was good, it was my least favourite of the four plates we had.
By the time we finished with the fourth plate, we were done. We were full and didn’t want to ruin the dairy-induced happiness that we were high on.
Enough about cheese; I also want to give credit to the wine. The Picpoul de Pinet tasted absolutely beautiful. I loved it so much that I ordered another glass – a different one called Loin de L’Oeil. It tasted as delightful. Both wines went really well with all the cheeses.
The ambience was cozy and relaxed. All the servers were kind and very helpful. It was one of my best dining experiences in London.
In the end, the waitress asked how it was, and I told them, and I quote:
“We are not big cheese eaters, but this was such a delightful experience. I love all the cheeses, and now I can’t eat cheese without pairings.”
The first part was debunked by Fafa the minute stepped out of the market.
“What do you mean you don’t like cheese? We eat cheese all the time in Australia. We had like four cheese at home”.
He was right. So I don’t know what I was on about, but the last part was genuine; From now on, I only want to eat cheese with the right pairings.
Pick and Cheese, the cheese train bar in London is not something to be missed out on if you love (or are not sure you “love”, but I have more than three varieties of cheese at home) cheese, the concept of eating your food over the counter and picking it from a moving belt, or even if you are just after some good wine.
My only advice is don’t eat beforehand and don’t make plans after, so you can go back to your hotel drunk on dairy.
I am definitely coming back.
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