When Randall Felts, a cheesemonger from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, moved to Chicago in 2016, he was tired of hearing complaints from others in his field that young people no longer bought quality cheese. “I took that a little too personal, I suppose,” he says, “and decided to be the change I wanted to see in the world.”
In 2020 he opened Beautiful Rind, a specialty cheese shop in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. But he still connects with cheese friends and family throughout the South, visiting shops and learning about new creameries. Here, Felts shares some of his favorite sources for great cheese:
Nashville, Tennessee
You may have seen those videos on TikTok of cheese conveyor belt restaurants abroad. Mother-daughter team Jacqueline Palladino and Ashton Judy brought the concept to Nashville in 2020. At their counter inside the food hall at L&L Market, a daily-rotating menu of cheese, charcuterie pairings, and dessert options circles past the seats, waiting for customers to grab their selections. Wine and cocktails are served by the glass.
New Orleans, Louisiana
Charcuterie boards from St. James.
When Richard and Danielle Sutton started their cheese store in 2006, they named it after the St. James neighborhood in London, home to two-hundred-year-old Paxton & Whitfield, the shop where the couple began their cheese journey. Channeling the educational vibe of their former employer, they encourage shoppers to sample every cheese in the case, enjoy a freshly made sandwich, or register for a workshop.
Atlanta, Georgia
The four-course prix fixe menu at this Atlanta fine-dining mainstay includes an entire course dedicated to cheese. (It’s course three, by the way.) You’ll have your choice of a cheese-centric dish, like Jasper Hill Farm’s Bayley Hazen Blue served with anjou pear, garnacha, and shortcrust, or a straight-up plate full of five cheeses.
Cedar Grove, North Carolina
This multigenerational cheese family offers a biweekly cheese CSA box, to be picked up at the creamery’s thirty-acre, tree-studded goat farm. You can choose between three tiers (Dabbler, Artisan, and Aficionado) ranging from one to three pounds of cheese. That includes varieties that are currently in development, allowing you to be a part of the cheesemaking process.
Sequatchie, Tennessee
Cheese wheels at Sequatchie Cove Creamery.
According to Felts, Sequatchie Cove is destined to win Best in Show at the American Cheese Society awards. The creamery’s Shakerag blue is found on menus all over the country, and its other varieties (Cumberland, Walden, and Coppinger) are all sourced from a single herd of cows from nearby Sweetwater Valley Farm. Visit the farm, just outside Chattanooga and surrounded by mountains and miles of wilderness, on Saturdays to try the cheese where it’s produced.
Birmingham, Alabama
Inside the Son of a Butcher.
Meat and cheese combine at this specialty shop run by the real-life son of a butcher, Addam Evans. The cheese team here doesn’t just make sight-unseen decisions about what to bring in; they meet each producer in person. Highlights include Thomasville Tomme cheese from Sweetgrass Dairy in Thomasville, Georgia; Stilton from Neal’s Yard Dairy in London; and burrata from Maplebrook Farms in Vermont.
Chicago, Illinois
A charcuterie board from Beautiful Rind.
Any cheese lover’s visit to Chicago should include a stop at Felts’s shop, where you’ll find a seasonal raclette menu and a selection of boutique chocolates alongside thousands of pounds of cheese in the case. You can also take fun workshops like cheese fortune telling (shameless plug: I am the fortune teller, and I can tell you the workshops have every bit of cheesy mysticism you’d expect), chocolate and cheese pairings, and other guided tastings.
