You know that expression that says you can't buy happiness but you can buy cheese and it's almost the same? Well, I was able to validate this saying by pushing open the door of Charlicot, the new gourmet cheese shop run by Charlène.

Charlène is the kind of girl you'd want as your best friend. I'm sure that when you call her to tell her you've been dumped, she shows up with wine and cheese and by the end of the evening you forget why you were crying in the first place! (and read all the way to the end, because as a super nice girl she gave me 2 platters to make you win!)

Hello Charlène, thank you for having me. Can you introduce yourself and tell us about Charlicot?

Ah, that's a big question! My passion for cheese started a long time ago when I was selling at the market on weekends to pay for my studies. I enjoyed it so much that I continued even after getting my "real" job as Administrative and Financial Manager at a merger and acquisition consulting firm, a position you could call "dream" but I didn't recognize myself in it every day...

I was managing transactions for people sometimes disconnected from reality and everyday life. One day I was asked to buy any vineyard just to make a tax transaction, without even knowing if the wine was good. I think that made me realize that I needed more meaning in my work to want to get up in the morning. So when I was made redundant, I realized that if I had never stopped my "student job" it was surely because it was my thing and I needed to make it my full-time job.

It took me a while to find a location and after several disappointments, I received approval of my application for this beautiful shop very close to my home. I saw it as a sign of fate. It hasn't always been easy but now I'm happy!

How do you choose your products?

I have 110 references in the shop. That's quite a lot for our space but when I like something, I have a hard time sorting! And since I hate it when my customers can't find the product they're looking for, it fills up quite quickly!

I source from regional affineurs, or from Rungis, or directly from small producers. I must have 6 or 7 suppliers total. At the very beginning I built up my range with the help of a cheesemaker I did an internship with who became my mentor and friend. And since then, I've enriched it little by little with products I love.

Besides, some customers act as business developers because they bring me products they love but have a hard time getting. Generally I taste them and end up putting them in the shop! It allows me to discover new products and they're happy to find products from their region near home, or that they discovered during their vacations...

For the other products (wine, honey, jams...), there's not really a strategy. These are taste crushes that I want to share with my customers. I love creating social connection around good products.

What sets you apart from other cheese shops in your opinion?

Hmm... I think first of all we're pretty relaxed and we don't overthink things. We're far from the fairly elitist image of some traditional cheese shops. We want to be accessible both in how we welcome people and in our prices.

Besides, people are often a bit hesitant when they place their order, I can tell they're holding back, because they often think cheese is an expensive product. When I tell them the price, they're relieved and add the piece that caught their eye and that they didn't dare to buy!

We also try to have a modern positioning. For example, we offer cocktail platters. These are 3 or 4 cheeses cut into pieces and arranged in a nice platter ready for tasting. It looks great as a gift if you're invited somewhere.

We also offer privatization of the shop in the evening (between 8:30 pm and 11:30 pm) for afterworks. This is possible for groups between 15 and 30 people. For €15 per person, everyone gets a tasting of an assortment of cheeses and cured meats. And to complete it, wine is sold at wine merchant prices (so without corkage fee).

We've also just launched an operation #bringyourbaguette. People bring their bread and choose the cheese and cured meat for their filling. The price is calculated based on the weight of the ingredients with a €1 surcharge for sandwich preparation.

Are there trends in the dairy/cheese market?

There aren't really trends in cheese, but there is strong seasonality. Of course, cheeses usually consumed hot like raclette and reblochon cheese are consumed more in winter while in summer those same products are delicious on a platter! In summer, customers especially prefer small goat cheeses, ewe's milk cheeses and fresh cheeses like mozzarella di bufala, burrata, feta...

However, what people don't know is that the production of certain products isn't possible all year round if we respect the animals' natural cycle. We often have to be educational with the customer. We explain for example that goats only give birth at a certain time. So it's mechanically impossible to produce cheese in certain winter months. There are workaround strategies but we prefer to educate the clientele about this issue. It's also our role to guarantee the authenticity of the product.

We also notice a strong impact of the external environment on consumption. It only takes an ad or a film to highlight a particular cheese and sales explode, it's quite impressive.

Your shop is really great and you can feel the care you've put into it, who took care of the decoration?

The design was done by Pep's création, an agency specialized in food shop design. They were recommended to me by a friend and I'll recommend them in turn because they knew exactly how to translate the atmosphere I wanted. I wanted to create a space with a loft feel, comfortable but not too rustic (because we want to be modern at Charlicot!).

We had nice surprises during construction, especially a really pretty old terracotta tile hidden under a concrete slab. I hunted down a few pieces like the barrel I found on leboncoin and it was a friend who is a graffiti artist who tagged the animals on the wall. It was important to me that the people around me participated in the design. In the end I really love this space and I think it really resembles me.

Bonus question: what do you think about vegan cheese?

I find the concept a bit extreme and it's not really the type of product I'm fond of, but I'd be curious to taste it. In any case, I don't think it will ever cross the threshold of the shop...

Thank you Charlène for having me and for the tasting (I LOVED the goat cheese with fig jam center)! Head over to Charlicot right away because the tasting was a real moment of culinary poetry, I recommend it 200%.

Charlicot
6 rue de la folie Méricourt
75011 Paris

And now Parisian friends close your eyes. Imagine yourself sitting along the Saint Martin canal or on a terrace, well settled in the sun, a glass in hand and your friends trying to solve the world's problems... To perfect this idyllic picture, I have 2 cocktail platters to make you win!

To play, two solutions:

• You can like the Charlicot Facebook page and share this article by mentioning a friend (or several!) with whom you'd like to eat it
• Follow the @Charlicot_fromagerie Instagram account and tag a friend (or several) on the photo that illustrates this article

You have until June 30 at midnight (the 2 winners will have to go to the shop to pick up their platter). Good luck!