Speciality Food Inspirational Cheese Retailers 2025

believe that, but now I get it. I absolutely get it!” Being a Grade I listed building of special interest, there were limits as to what could be achieved when conjuring the idea for Victoria’s Cheese, but customers are loving the look, which she describes as “ecclesiastical meets 70s caravan”. Ambient goods are neatly arranged in antique cabinets, while pops of colour shine through in soft furnishings. It’s a look that, Victoria says, stops customers in their tracks, before they queue up at the 3m-long cheese counter. The ambience is, she adds, cosy and intimate – it’s not big by anymeans – but this helps foster conversations. Often visitors sitting down at one of the two dine-in tables overhear Victoria discussing a type of cheese at the counter, and end up asking her for a wedge to-go before they leave. 14 @specialityfood V ictoria Dunthorne still feels like she has to pinch herself when she arrives each day at her eponymous cheese shop, nestled into an ancient, historic crypted building in Ely. “This was never my grand plan,” she explains. “It’s chance, and life circumstances that brought me here.” Victoria has loved cheese all her life, and spent a few years working behind the counter for other cheesemongers before taking the leap (encouraged by friends and family) to set up her own cheese box delivery service last March. Trundling around Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, delivering fine cheeses to eager customers, really sparked something within her. “I could just see howmany people were becoming appreciative of good food, and knowing where it comes from. When you sell them a piece of cheese, and tell them the name of the person who made it and the story behind it, ultimately they tell those stories to the people they are giving the cheese to or sharing it with. I love that,” she says, adding that a bricks andmortar location was never on the horizon - until a friend happened upon “this darling little shop”. A fresh start Victoria and her husband crunched the numbers and ploughed their savings into the premises – and she hasn’t looked back. “You knowwhen people say, ‘do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life?’, I never used to LOCATION: ELY FOUNDED: 2024 FOUNDER: VICTORIA DUNTHORNE Victoria’s Cheeses PASSONATE NEWCOMER Victoria’s stringent attention to detail meant that, having gained a five-star hygiene rating following an EHO visit, her shop was selected as part of a scheme carrying out further hygiene testing. “I wondered what I was letting myself in for, but all my samples came back perfect. It was just that assurance I’mdoing everything right, which is a worry, especially when you’re dealing with rawmilk.” Victoria’s top tip for keeping the products in her counter perfect, is to store a couple of blocks of lard in amongst them, using these for probing, rather than going directly into the cheese. “It’s a no-brainer,” she says. AN EYE FOR DETAIL EAST ANGLIA