Many of you have contacted us to know where they can find French cheese in Perth and Fremantle and which French cheeses are the best. This page aims at sharing our 10 most preferred French cheeses and which fromagerie to find them in Perth and Fremantle.

1. Le Camembert and Le Brie

[typically A$5/100g]
Not that this is our preferred but this is the one we would recommend most. Le Camembert is soft and creamy cheese with a fairly mild taste and buttery flavour. It is actually known as the “best cheese” according to the French.

Most supermarkets in Perth sell camembert which makes it the easiest French cheese to find in Perth. President is probably the most famous French producer of Camembert and offer great value for money.

Brie, Coulommiers, Crémeux, Délice or Brebirousse all are from the same cheese family with slight differences...

2. French Blue Cheeses

[typically A$10/100g]

Blue cheese is a sheep milk cheese, white and piquant with a little moist and typical traces of blue mould (blue vein). Its smell and strength in taste makes it very popular to cheese lovers but very unpopular to others…
Blue cheese is a type of cheese which includes the following five major French variants:

the Roquefort, the Bleu d'Auvergne, the Fourme d'Ambert, Bleu des Causses and the Saint Agur Blue.

3. The French Stinkers

[typically A$10/100g]

Arguably, the best French cheeses by their taste and strength but be aware, they will fill your fridge and kitchen with fragrance that can't be ignored…

All cheeses in this category are soft, washed rind cheeses made from cow milk with orange to red coating on the rind which tends to be somewhat humid due to the repetitive washings

4. Fromage de Chèvre (French Goat cheese)

[typically A$10/100g]

The « Fromage de Chèvre » is actually a cheese type which includes a multitude of variants. The most common are le Crottin de Chavignol, le Chabichou du Poitou, la bûche de Sainte-Maure and le Rocamadour.

In addition to its taste completely different from the other French cheeses, the French goat cheese can be found in plenty of different shapes such as Crottin (cylinder shape), palet (disk shape), brique (rectangular shape), bûche et bûchette (log shape), pyramide (pyramid shape)… Adding it to your cheese platter will bring a little fun to it. They are also perfect to eat with fruits such as fig, apple or pear. This is important when considering how much Aussies like fruits on cheese platters…

Finding French goat cheese in Perth is a bit of a challenge and is mainly limited to specialised shops.

5. Saint-Nectaire

[typically A$10/100g]

The Saint-Nectaire is made from cow's milk and is a non-baked cheese with compressed paste. The cheese is soft with and smelly creamy paste. Its taste has a touch of hazelnut coming from the aromatic flora where the cheese ages.

10 best French cheese and where to find them in Perth and Fremantle

The French did not invent cheese but they love it ! This is probably the primary reason why the French are so good at making cheese. The French are the biggest consumers of cheese in the world (26kg per year per people in 2013).

There are obviously other contributing factors why French cheeses are so famous such as the importance of the monks who developed cheese making techniques, pasteurization…

This article would not have been possible without the generous support of Simon Johnson in Subiaco who not only have an amazing range of French cheeses but also joined us as a featured partner.

Bleu d'Auvergne

Fourme d'Ambert

Bleu des Causses

Saint Agur

Roquefort

Époisses

Maroilles

Munster

Pont-l'Évêque

Gres Des Vosges

Langres

6. Cantal

[typically A$10/100g]

One of the eldest cheeses in France, Cantal is made from cow's milk. It is a semi-hard cheese with soft interior with a flavour similar to Cheddar. Its taste is strong, similar to tasty butter.

7. Comté & Morbier

[typically A$7/100g]

France’s biggest selling hard cheese, the Comté is a type of gruyere with a texture relatively hard and flexible. Its taste is pretty strong and somewhat sweet.

8. Saint-Marcellin & Saint-Félicien

Both cheeses are made of cow's milk cheese produced in the Rhône-Alpes region of France with names originating from the small town where the cheese was first produced and sold. In France, they are designated dauphinois cheeses, referring to the former French province Dauphiné where it originated. They both share similar texture and taste.

9. Emmental & Gruyère

[typically A$6/100g]

Emmental originates from the Swiss region with the same name. It is a semi hard cheese with a mild taste. Similarly, Gruyère was created in the Swiss town of the same name. Gruyère is sweet and slightly salty. Both cheeses are commonly used for cooking (gratin, fondue, French onion soup, croquet mousieur, cordon bleu…) as it melts very well and have a mild taste. The ones you will find in most supermarkets would be fine for cooking.

However, both can also be served on cheese platters when procured from specialised shops which typically propose higher grades.

10. Tommes

[typically A$10/100g]

Tommes is a type of cheese, and is a generic name given to a class of cheese produced mainly in the French Alpsand in Switzerland. It can be made from cow's, ewe's, or goat's milk and is generally low in fat.

There are about a thousand different cheeses in France so there is no point trying to make this list exhaustive.

However, we have not covered Raclette, Beaufort and Reblochon in this article, as they will be the subject of a separate post coming soon. Stay tuned!!

The maps below show where each cheese orginiated from.

This article has been written with the best of our knowledge and the contributions from the cheese shops. Due to cheese being a seasonal product they are sometimes subject to availability. We strongly recommend to contact the shops in advance.

If you know about a place where to find French cheese in Perth please don’t hesitate to contact us.

The following shops have not responded to our requests and have therefore been omitted from this article.

We will include them as soon as we receive the information from them.

source: www.maison-du-lait.com

source: le-lutin-savant.com

last updated 17-Feb-2017

Online

can try

Online

not available in Perth...

Online

not available in Perth...

Saint-Marcellin

Saint-Félicien

can try

Gruyère

Emmental

Online

When Comté cheese makers were finishing their day, they would cover the excess curd with ashes to protect it overnight. Fresh milk was added on top in the morning resulting in a cheese called Morbier.