A Look Inside Cheese Plus: Polk Street's Masterclass in Artisan European Imports

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The centerpiece of the floor is a thirty-foot curved refrigerated counter staffed by credentialed mongers. The rotation changes weekly based on seasonal milk chemistry, winter hay feeding, and spring pasture greening. European imported cheeses dominate the top tier, represented by wheels that rarely reach standard distribution channels.

Here, cheese is treated as agricultural produce with a clear lifespan. Mongers pull back plastic wrap each morning, shave oxidized faces off open wheels, and monitor internal paste development. On any given Tuesday, you will find Beaufort d'Alpage AOC aged eighteen months, its dense, straw-colored paste studded with tyrosine crunch crystals, resting alongside raw-milk Vacherin Mont d'Or wrapped in spruce bark straps from the Swiss Jura. The shop maintains strict adherence to European Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) mandates, bypassing industrial export facsimiles in favor of cooperative-churned wheels.

The regional presence is equally deliberate. Northern California produces some of the most dynamic goat and sheep milk cheeses in North America, and Cheese Plus maintains direct relationships with dairy farmers across Sonoma, Marin, and Humboldt counties. Small farmsteads deliver whole-milk rounds directly to the back door, cutting out third-party cold-storage delays. When winter rolls around, the shop fires up its seasonal raclette heating station, scraping bubbling layers of washed-rind Swiss cheese directly over roasted fingerling potatoes, cornichons, and sliced jambon de Paris, sending a rich, toasted-cream aroma through the front aisles.