Wine and cheese.

Did you smile?

Of course you did. Who doesn’t love wine and cheese? It’s everywhere. From book clubs to gallery openings. Wine and cheese makes the room feel like something is happening. Wine and cheese invites conversation.

It can also help you avoid one.

That is something you notice working dinner service. People’s relationship to food is often the result of their intentions. When the gang is all together, they’re not paying attention to the food, they’ve barely looked at the menu. They want easy food, glasses full and a piece of bread to dip while a scandalous story unfolds.

Then there is the table that came to indulge: they want the sommelier’s take, they want to talk about Tuscany, they want to know exactly “what is muhammara?” and whether they can say hello to the chef. And sometimes people are just trying to get through the meal, or through the person across from them. But, if you put a block of dairy next to a bottle of fermented grape juice in between them, you may have just saved their evening at the very least.

That is why I love the cheese board at Musette right now. This spring, we added the option to choose your own three cheeses from a selection of five. It is a small choice, but a useful one. You are not ordering the “correct” cheese board. You are building the one that fits the table.

For the lost souls, the love birds, the family in town or the gals night out, I give you my Top 3 Cheese Boards for your evening ahead. Naturally, I include an exquisite wine by-the-glass to bring it all together.

But, but, but before we begin, riddle me this? How did wine and cheese become such a dynamic duo? I can tell you it wasn't the French. They surely have their opinions on le plateau de fromage but it has nothing to do with the wine. What I can tell you is this, the origin story of this beautiful pairing is what you might call nefarious. I’ll save that goss for the end. First, I present the lineup.

Camembert - KAM-əm-bair

• Style: Grass-fed and soft-ripened
• Milk: Cow’s milk
• Origin: Normandy France
• Character: Creamy center with a bloomy rind and sweet cream notes
• Fun Fact: The white rind mold is a single clone facing a genetic extinction crisis
• Pairing Tip: It works best with bubbles, textured whites, and lighter reds

Comté - Kohm-tay

• Style: Firm Alpine aged three years
• Milk: Raw cow’s milk
• Origin: Jura region of France
• Character: Supple texture with notes of roasted hazelnuts and warm broth
• Fun Fact: It is aged in a converted military fortress
• Pairing Tip: It pairs easily with bubbles, Burgundy, or sweet wine

Tête de Moine - tet duh MWAN

• Style: Semi-hard Alpine aged two months
• Milk: Raw cow’s milk
• Origin: Switzerland and the Jura Mountains
• Character: Mildly funky flavor traditionally shaved into thin rosettes with a girolle
• Fun Fact: Tête du moine is French for Monk's Head to honor the monks who first produced it eight centuries ago
• Pairing Tip: It creates a natural bridge to aromatic whites and lighter reds

Garlic & Herb Goat Cheese - it’s American English sound it out

• Style: Fresh chèvre
• Milk: Goat’s milk
• Origin: Wisconsin, United States
• Character: Tangy and creamy blended with garlic, marjoram, and oregano
• Fun Fact: Goats cheese predates cow's cheese a full millennia because goats were domesticated thousands of years before cows
• Pairing Tip: It wants a wine with lift like bubbles or crisp whites

Roquefort - ROHK-fort

• Style: Classic blue cheese aged three months
• Milk: Raw Lacaune sheep’s milk
• Origin: Roquefort-sur-Soulzon France
• Character: Creamy paste with a spicy blue bite and earthy undertones
• Fun Fact: The blue in blue cheese is actually harmless, edible mold—specifically a strain called Penicillium roqueforti
• Pairing Tip: Bright apricot flavors make a sharp contrast to its richness

Catching Up with the Gang

• The Wine: Juvé & Camps Cava Reserva
• The Cheeses: Camembert / Comté / Goat Cheese
• Order this when: The group chat has finally made it out into the real world.

This is the no-stress board. You came to talk, not to sit through a pairing seminar, and bubbles instinctively know how to behave at a table. The Cava is dry, crisp, and toasty, which gives all three cheeses something useful. Camembert brings the cream. Comté brings the nutty, savory bite. Goat cheese gives the board a bright little snap. Then the bubbles come through and clean everything up so you are ready to go right back into the conversation. Everyone finds something they like immediately, someone orders another glass, and suddenly there is no cheese left even though you swear the board just arrived.

Your Parents Are in Town

• The Cheeses: Tête de Moine / Comté / Camembert
• The Wine: Lalela Cinsault
• Order this when: You want the dinner to feel special, but nobody needs to be nervous around it

Your parents are in New York. You want to take them somewhere that feels like you made an adult decision, not like you panic-Googled “nice wine bar near me”. This is where I would go red, but not big, heavy red. Lalela Cinsault is bright, red-fruited, and lightly spiced, with just enough grip without overpowering it. Comté gives the wine a deeper savory side. Camembert keeps things generous and familiar. Tête de Moine is your little flex: it’s shaved into aromatic rosettes that give you a distraction from questions about your stalled career. There is also a story in the glass. Lalela is made by South African winemaker Natasha Williams; its name means “come listen” in Zulu. That is the kind of detail I save for the table that actually wants to know more—not because anyone needs homework with their dinner, but because sometimes a bottle deserves the extra minute.

A Date Worth Extending

• The Wine: Château La Gironie Monbazillac 2019
• The Cheeses: Goat Cheese / Tête de Moine / Roquefort
• Order this when: Nobody has asked for the check yet, and there is no good reason to start now.

This is the one where I need you to completely trust me: bypass the dry menu and order the sweet wine. Monbazillac is honeyed and apricot-toned, but it has enough crisp acidity to keep it from feeling heavy or syrupy. Goat cheese gives it a bright, tangy start. Tête de Moine moves the board into something more savory. Then you get to the Roquefort, and that is the entire point of the order. Sweet wine and salty blue cheese is one of those classic pairings that makes people stop mid-sentence. The Roquefort is strong, salty, and unapologetic. The Monbazillac does not fight it; it gives that intensity somewhere to go. This is the board for two people who are still having fun, locked in eye contact, and entirely willing to order one more things to keep their knees touching.

Ultimately, there is no wrong way to do this. A cheese board is just an excuse to stay at the table. It doesn’t require a masterclass. You just need a good glass, a great piece of dairy, and the right company. Build your trio. The real magic is in the discovery.

420 Lenox Avenue (131st St)

Harlem, New York City

Open 7 days a week

8am to 3pm (cafe service)

5pm - 12am (wine service)

Post Script

The French never treated this combination like a sacred science. To them, the course was the sacred part. It was a non-negotiable step. It always came strictly after the main dish and before dessert. Why the specific timing? It was a gastronomic bridge. The cheese course let you finish off the savory red wine from dinner. It coated the stomach. It prepped your palate for the upcoming sugar hit of dessert. They didn't stress over perfect flavor profiles. They just drank whatever was already open.

The hyper-curated pairing is actually a modern Anglo-American invention. It began in the 19th century with the phrase: "Buy on an apple, sell on cheese." If you were shopping for wines for your shop or bar, you would eat an apple first. It clears your palate so you can judge a wine correctly. Now, if you were a wine merchant trying to unload cheap, bitter wine? Feed the buyer fatty, salty cheese first. The fat coats the tongue. It masks the flaws. It makes terrible wine taste perfectly smooth.

Then came post-WWII America. By the 1970s, the middle class wanted to feel sophisticated. Thanks to Julia Child, a formal French dinner was the ultimate status symbol—but nobody actually wanted to spend five hours cooking one. Enter the suburban "Wine and Cheese Party." It was low-effort, high-brow entertaining. Grab a jug of domestic wine. Throw some cubed cheddar on a board with toothpicks. Boom. You're hosting a bohemian salon. In the 1980s and 90s, food media and sommeliers took over. They turned a casual party trick into a high-stakes science with rigid rules.

Fast forward to today. We aren't even in the Pinterest era anymore. We are fully in the era of the "grid." Now it’s about the hyper-curated, visually flawless, aesthetic-first layout built for a feed. But whether it’s an old merchant hustle, a 70s parlor trick, or a modern grid-worthy photo, it still works. It keeps us at the table.

P.P.S. For this article, I sat down and ate a plate of all five cheeses alongside half the wine on our menu. My Uber driver literally had to wake me up when I got home. Learn from my nap. Zzzzz.

Three Books for the Counter

• The Book of Cheese by Liz Thorpe – Thorpe breaks cheese down into ten foundational "gateways," like "creamy" or "hard." It is the most practical, intuitive guide to finding what you actually like.
• The New Rules of Cheese by Anne Saxelby – A short, unpretentious pocket guide. Written by a late icon of the American artisanal movement, it gives you pure storage hacks and buying guides without any fluff.
• Composing the Cheese Plate by Brian Keyser & Leigh Belanger– Written by the founder of New York’s famed Casellula cheese cafe. This is the ultimate, no-nonsense guide to actually building a board. It focuses heavily on pairings, condiments, and how to balance sweet, salty, and savory elements without the elitist fluff.