Good Taste is the Worst Vice

Cheese x 13 at Brindille, Chicago

Now that’s a cheese plate!

Brindille offers thirteen varieties of French cheese arrayed in a neat circle, with meltingly sweet baked apple in the middle.  Starting at 12 o’clock, they proceed roughly in order from mild to intense:

  • Chevre d’Argental – Rhone-Alps
  • Blanc Bleu Tombor – Pays de la Loire
  • Sainte-Maure de Touraine – Centre
  • Sainte Nectaire – Auvergne
  • Petit Basque – Pyrénées
  • Crémeux de Bourgogne – Burgundy
  • Brillat Savarin – Normandy
  • Camembert – Normandy
  • Munster – Alsace
  • Preferes de Montagnes – Rhone-Alps
  • Fium Orbu de Brebis – Corsica
  • Comte Saint Antoine – Jura
  • Roquefort AOC – Carles
Each piece is a bite or two presented at the perfect temperature – just enough to contemplate and compare taste and texture, in a sort of tour de fromage.Some of my favorites were the old creamy standbys, Cremeux de Bourgogne, Brillat Savarin, and Camembert.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the Munster, which was quite sophisticated – nothing like the deli case cheese the name conjures.

And I especially liked a cheese I’d never heard of before, the Corsican Fium Orbu de Brebis, which is slightly firm and complexly flavored.

Get a glass of red wine and study up – it’s a cheesy crash course!


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