A cellar filled with mouldy blue brains sounds more like the setting of a sci-fi horror than the location for Newington Green’s newest dining experience. Yet Jumi cheesemongers last week began their Cheesy Nights, where blue-brain cheese can be swallowed down with blood-red wine.
The distinctive cheese, which is a favourite at Borough Market, is shaped like a human brain complete with cerebrum-like grooves and covered in a thick blue-green mould. It was created by accident when a family of cheese makers in Switzerland left balls of cow’s cheese to mature in damp cave and forgot about it for weeks.
Every Tuesday and Thursday night it can be enjoyed alongside an array of other cheesy delights and diners can heat raclette in flavours such as truffle and chili. Manager Marcello says, “All the cheeses are unique. Everything comes from a few villages in Emmental, it is all from our production in this region. It is not cheese you can find in the supermarket.”
As well as manufacturing their own cheeses, traditional ‘Zopf’ bread is baked to enjoy. Sarah, who was visiting the shop from Switzerland, said “My mum bakes this bread every Sunday and they make it as good as my mum does. And that is a compliment.”
Cheesy Nights – 6 – 9 pm Tuesdays and ThurJumi Cheese, 56 Newington Green.
