If you're a regular Di Bruno's customer, chances are high that you've bought cheeses that come to us from our partners at Neals Yard Dairy, even if you didn't know it. We here at Di Bruno's have worked with Neal's Yard since the early nineties, back when pounds of provolone were the most common order and real farmhouse Cheddar was near impossible to find. Today, Neal's Yard consists of a network of cheese-mongers, affineurs (people who age cheese) and distributors widely considered to be the best in the UK. Digging back, it all started with two friends in late 70s London, making yogurt in a shop in London's then-dilapidated Borough Market.
This photo and all photos via the Neals Yard Dairy website.
The shop is still there, though instead of yogurt, Neal's Yard now offers the finest British cheeses available both overseas and stateside. It is Neal's' Yards commitment to these cheeses that make them unique as a distributor and partner. Many of these cheeses were on the brink of extinction with very few outlets beyond their own local markets. Neal's Yard founder and buyer Randolph Hodgson was unique among cheese buyers of the time in that he would visit cheese makers all around the country, offering advice and encouragement, helping them and binding them together to create a community in what had previously been a very solitary profession. Neal's Yard continues these relationships into the present day with their buyers and cheesemongers traveling around England to select the wheels and flavo(u)r profiles that would be the best fit for their customers.
The community that Randolph and NYD built would eventually extend across the globe to the Italian Market, right into our stores, where our cheesemongers would find the opportunity to sell cheeses that had never been seen in the city before and whose appearances in the US had been rare anywhere. Di Bruno Bros. enjoys a unique relationship with Neal's Yard, being among the privileged few to enjoy some of their newest cheeses, such as
Cornish Kern, as well as their classics like the never-hyped-enough
Keen's and
Montgomery's mature Cheddars. (We've got them in the stores, or order them online via the links in their names.) A stamp of approval from NYD means that a new cheese is guaranteed to be one of the most exciting and flavorful in the case and the perfect place to start for your next cheese plate.
For the month of September, find special deals on all NYD mature cheddars in both the stores and online! Besides the Keen's and Montgomery's linked above, check out
Lincolnshire Poacher for a cross between a cheddar and a Swiss-style,
Hafod for a buttery cheese made by self-proclaimed Welsh hippies, the lovely lemony
Westcombe for the most meltable iteration of aged cheddar, or
Isle of Mull for a (literal) hint of whiskey.
Read more about Neal's Yard Dairy on their website by clicking here.
