Say cheese!

The Cheese Room at The Westin Mina Seyahi has proved surprisingly popular with Dubai residents.

The Cheese Room in Oeno Wine Bar at The Westin Mina Seyahi Beach Resort & Marina boasts more than 50 cheeses from five different countries.

The cheeses on offer come from Spain, Italy, France, Australia and England and around 95% are handmade according to the hotel's chef de cuisine and cheese sommelier, Jean-Paul Lourdes.

Cheese is something of a passion for Lourdes, who used to be a cheese maker before he became a chef.

"I'm a chef de cuisine by trade but I have also been involved in the cheese business for quite some time," he explains.

"I also opened a similar cheese room in Australia before I came to Dubai. It was the largest in the southern hemisphere, with 300 types of cheeses from all over the world, and I used to make about 20 different cheeses myself right there on site."
 

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Strangely, however, Lourdes doesn't actually eat cheese himself.

"It's not that I don't enjoy it, it's just not in my diet. I appreciate it though, and I taste it every day - just a couple of grams here and there to make sure it's good to serve."

Lourdes also doesn't drink alcohol, but he has worked closely with The Westin's sommelier to pair the various cheeses with wines from Oeno's extensive collection.

"I explained the background of all the different cheeses, the acidity levels and the fat levels and then, between the two of us, we matched all the cheeses to different wines on our menu."

The Cheese Room has cheeses ranging in age from just one week up to four years, and the extensive range includes cows' milk cheeses as well as those made from goats' milk and sheep's milk.

"We cover all of the varieties, and then we have five to seven different types of each variety," says Lourdes.

"If you take goats' milk cheese, for example, there are so many different varieties - some with a white mould, some that are fresh, some have a blue mould running through them - there are so many different types of each category.

"We're a cheese room, not a store, so we have to limit the quantities that we have. But for a small place, we've covered a lot."

A cheese-lover's paradise

The Cheese Room measures around 40m² and contains three large temperature and humidity controlled cabinets that maintain the optimum conditions for storing the various cheeses.

"In the first fridge, on the top shelf, we have the goats' cheese, and on the shelf underneath are the white moulds, such as Chaource, Coeur de Neufchatel, Brie de Meaux, and an Australian camembert, King Island Triple Cream."

The second cabinet contains a vast selection of washed-rind cheeses - Epoisses, Livarot à Laiche, Pont L'évéque and Munster Gerome from France, Talleggio from Italy and Brebis Fougére from Corsica.

"Then there's Fromage du Maquis from Corsica, which is a sheep's milk cheese that's rolled in lavender," Lourdes adds.

"And there are the hard and semi-hard cheeses like Tête de Moine, Pecorino Romano, and Ossau Iraty.

We also have two cheddars from the UK - Keens Cheddar and Montgomery's Cheddar - then there's Mimolette, which has been soaked in carrot juice, a Spanish Queso Manchego and the four-year-old Reggiano Parmesan."

Rounding off the selection are some blue cheeses, a selection that includes an English Colston Basset Stilton, a French Roquefort, and Val Pusteria from Italy.

"We have tried to cover at least two or three different countries with each style of cheese," explains Lourdes.

"The guests find it quite fascinating to come to the room and realise that France is not the only country that makes cheese.