A delicatessen and cheese counter on the High Street since 2012: twenty-four cheeses with the strength and the price on every label, charcuterie sliced to order, sixty wines chosen to go with them, and hampers you build here.
Closed for today. Opens tomorrow at 9:00am
£3.20/100g
£3.60/100g
£3.40/100g
£6.80/100g
£5.90/100g
£4.40/100g
The shop
01
Twenty-four cheeses at a time, a third of them Welsh, cut from the wheel to the weight you ask and tasted before they are wrapped: hard and soft, cow, goat and sheep, mild to fierce. Every label carries the milk, a strength from one to five, the country and the price per hundred grams, and the cheese page filters them by milk and strength.
From £2.
02
Cured ham, salami, chorizo, coppa and bresaola, sliced to order on the red slicer, from two Welsh curers, a farm in Somerset and three Spanish producers: a Carmarthen ham, a Welsh lamb salami, a fennel salami, Iberico from acorn-fed pigs. Olives, anchovies, tins and the rest of the deli on the shelves behind.
Carmarthen ham £5.
03
Pick a basket (a box, a wicker basket or the big hamper) and what goes in it from about twenty things off the shelves: cheeses, charcuterie, chutneys, crackers, wine, chocolate, honey. The hampers page keeps a running total and says how far you are from free delivery in the Vale over £75. Packed on the day with wood wool and a handwritten card; posted anywhere in Britain for £9.95.
Baskets from £6 to £18, then what you put in it; most hampers come to £50 to £120.
04
Sixty bottles on the back wall, chosen by Rhys to go with what is on the counter: a dozen under £12 for a Tuesday, a Welsh shelf with a sparkling from the Vale and two whites from Monmouthshire, sherry and port for the blues, cider and perry for the Caerphilly. Ask what goes with the cheese you have just bought and he will say.
From £9 to £45 a bottle; a dozen under £12.
05
From half past eleven to half past two, Monday to Saturday: sandwiches made to order on sourdough from the bakery across the road with whatever is on the counter, a soup, and the lunch board for one with three cheeses, two meats, chutney and bread at £14. Six tables by the window, takeaway in paper, a glass of wine from the shelf.
Sandwiches from £6.
06
Most Thursdays at seven the shop closes, the tables come together and twenty people taste six cheeses and three wines with Ffion and Rhys, sometimes with the maker who made them. Themed: Welsh cheese, the blues, goat's and sheep's, the Christmas board. £28 a seat, the seats left listed, booked on the order page.
£28 a seat with six cheeses and three wines; the maker evenings £35.
Hampers
Choose the basket, tick what goes in it from about twenty things on the shelves, and the total runs as you go with a bar showing how far you are from free delivery in the Vale over £75. We pack it on the morning with wood wool, the cheese cut that day and a handwritten card. Posted anywhere in Britain for £9.95.
Thursday evenings
£28 a seat, £35 with a maker. Doors at quarter to seven; the shop closes to everyone else at half past six. Ten per cent off anything from the evening bought on the night.
Lunch, from half past eleven
Sandwiches made to order from what is on the counter on bread from the bakery across the road, a soup, and the lunch board for one. Six tables in the bay window; takeaway in paper.
How we work
A sliver of anything on the counter, as many as it takes. Cheese is a matter of taste and we would rather you left with the one you love than the one you thought you wanted.
Every cheese has its price per hundred grams on the label and on this website. We cut to the weight you ask, within a few grams, and say the price before we wrap it.
Cheese lives in the cellar at twelve degrees and comes up to the counter in the morning; cut faces are re-wrapped in waxed paper, never cling film, and a cheese past its best is taken off rather than sold cheap.
We buy from about forty makers, most of them farms that milk their own herd. The maker is on the label, and the newsletter tells their story once a month.
Customers
I ask for something strong and goat and Ffion hands me four slivers until I find it. The label says the strength out of five and the price per hundred grams, so I know what I am buying before she cuts it. The best counter in South Wales.
Built a hamper on the website for my parents' anniversary, watched the total go up, added the Welsh sparkling to get over the free delivery line. It arrived the next day with a handwritten card and the cheese wrapped in waxed paper. My mother rang in tears.
Six cheeses and three wines on a Thursday with twenty strangers who were friends by the Époisses. The maker from the Gower came and told us about her goats. I have been to five and I now know I like sheep's cheese, which I did not.
Yes, anything on the counter, as many slivers as it takes. That is what the counter is for.
The cheese page filters the counter by milk (cow, goat, sheep) and strength from one to five; start there, then come and taste. Or tell us what you liked last time and we will find three more like it.
Build one on the hampers page: choose the basket, tick what goes in it, and the total runs as you go with the distance to free delivery in the Vale over £75. Press order and the form is filled in. Posted anywhere in Britain for £9.95.
The order page lists the next evenings with the seats left; choose one and send the form. £28 a seat, £35 with a maker; twenty seats; most Thursdays at seven.
About half the counter is made with vegetable or microbial rennet and the label says which. We will tell you at the counter.
Hampers and orders in the Vale Tuesday to Friday, free over £75; posted anywhere in Britain for £9.95 by next-day courier, Monday to Wednesday.
Choose the basket and what goes in it from the shelves; the total runs as you go and tells you how far you are from free delivery in the Vale over £75. Packed with wood wool and a handwritten card; posted anywhere in Britain for £9.95.
