Sometimes light bulb moments occur on innocuous days when you’re doing seemingly ordinary things.
Just ask friends Etienne Delaune, Amine Chekali and Melik Belhadi, who were hanging out one day and had a eureka! moment. The trio realised that despite being a sophisticated city, Kuala Lumpur lacked a really good cheese shop that provided the knowledge-sharing and tasting experiences that made these haunts such a mainstay in Europe.
Instead of letting that realisation float into oblivion, the friends spent 20 months doing research before finally opening dedicated cheese shop Fromage in KL’s salubrious Bangsar Shopping Centre a few weeks ago.
Fromage hosts approximately 30 to 40 artisanal cheeses, sourced primarily from France as all three founders have French ties. Delaune is Malaysian-Chinese and French, while Chekali and Belhadi are both French with Algerian roots.
“Growing up in Malaysia, cheese was something I felt was missing. That’s why we wanted to bring the whole experience here because in France, you have a cheese store at every corner,” says Delaune.
He adds that it’s the same in Switzerland, Spain and Italy. “People there give you advice (on cheese) according to your preferences. In Malaysia, even though you can get some cheese from supermarkets here, it’s hard to get AOP cheeses in KL,” he says.
Delaune shares that this is what the friends discovered after speaking to a number of people from Europe who now live in the Klang Valley.
“That was the starting point of us thinking, ‘Okay, there is something to do there’. But the idea for us was not just to fill a need, but to potentially create the best cheese shop in the region,” he says.
The founders also wanted to steer clear of launching a “snobbish, expat-driven shop” and hoped instead to create a more price-appropriate, accessible experience aimed at locals. To date, they say 90% of their customers are well-travelled Malaysians.
“If you walk into any supermarket and you go to the cheese aisle, what you have is a bunch of cheeses, one on top of the other. If you don’t know much about cheese, you have kind of a choice paralysis.
“We realised that the challenge is not just to fulfil the need, but also provide market education. That’s very hard to do. And that has translated in the way we designed the space.
“We have a big island counter where we can cut every cheese and you can taste it. So if you walk by, you’ll see that we’re just handing out slices to everyone.
“We speak to customers and explain about the cheese. This whole experience is more about sharing with anyone that’s interested in cheese,” says Chekali.
Over 97% of the cheese range at Fromage carries an AOP (French), DOP (Italian) or AOP (Switzerland) certification. These certifications are essentially protected designations of origin labels which certify that these particular cheeses are made the traditional way by craftsmen.
To source the cheese, the team worked directly with Meilleur Apprenti de France 2020 winner Yanis Otmani. The Meilleur Apprenti de France is a prized annual competition in France that recognises exceptional trade skills among people under 21 in over 120 categories. This includes baking, butchery, fashion design and carpentry.
Winners are often highly- sought after in the industry.
“He’s our consultant, so he helped us with everything – from knife and cheese board selection to how to cut the cheese, and the overall cheese selection. We don’t have that specific knowledge ourselves so having him on board allowed us to take care of the purely business side of things,” says Chekali.
So what’s available at Fromage? Well, you can expect to indulge in a wide range of predominantly French cheeses – from semi-hard aged cow’s milk cheese like Comte AOP, which is from the Jura region in France; runny, creamy Saint Marcellin; pungent, creamy dense blue cheese in the form of Fourme D’Ambert AOP (one of the oldest blue cheeses in France); crumbly, velvety Crottin de Chavignol (goat’s cheese); and the rich, opulently creamy Brie de Meaux AOP, often called the king of cheese.
Italian offerings like the 24-month aged Parmigiano Reggiano DOP and Swiss cheese like the soft, supple Gruyere AOP are also available for those looking for something off-the-French-beaten-track.
Most of the cheese at Fromage can be purchased in amounts that suit your needs, so you can opt to get them in 100g blocks or larger amounts, with prices starting at RM26 per 100g. The Saint Marcellin is probably the most affordable cheese in their line-up and can be purchased at RM15 per piece (it’s sold in little containers).
Fromage also sells a range of premium Italian charcuterie, including beef bresaola, beef pepperoni salami and smoked turkey breast.
To maintain the quality of the cheese, the friends had a custom-made cellar built for them one floor below the shop. The temperature-controlled room helps preserve the cheese in ideal conditions and ensures that these prized dairy products don’t dry out.
Moving forward, the friends are looking beyond having Fromage serve as just a cheese shop. In the future, they say there are plans to have a tech element attached to take the cheese shop to the modern realm.
“In parallel, what we’re doing is building a cheese companion app. So it will be an app where for instance, if you come to the shop, you’ll be able to take a picture or scan any cheese. And then you’ll get the full story of the cheese – where it’s from, what sort of texture to expect, etc.
“Then you’ll have pairing recommendations and cooking advice. So that app will serve to lessen the intimidation that you can have when you see so many different kinds of cheese, because we really want to make cheese accessible for everyone,” says Chekali.
And is there likely to be another Fromage in the works? According to Delaune, there just might be.
“We’re still figuring out the logistics of that. But ideally, we’d like to open in one more location,” he says.
