Since ‘the great indoors’, our appreciation of simple pleasures appears to have gained sharp new focus. But if you also quite like the idea of someone else taking care of the DIY cottagecore for a while, pull up a stool at the counter of Rozelle’s new cheese cellar door, Willowbrae. Avid market-goers will recognise the tubs of fresh goat’s curd rolled in crushed black olives, mixed pepper or beetroot relish as mainstays of the Orange Grove Organic Food Markets, Northside Produce Markets, Carriageworks, Le Marche and Hawkesbury Harvest Markets. But now Willowbrae’s chevre can be enjoyed all week long, and in all weather conditions, at their very own urban outpost on Rozelle's Darling Street.
Willowbrae’s new owner, Daniel Thaine, is a hobby person. He brews his own beer, throws his own pottery, stuffs his own sausages, makes sake from scratch, and in late 2020 was dabbling in some small scale cheese-making with milk he bought off goat farmers Karen and David Borg at the Orange Grove markets. A fortuitous conversation revealed the couple were getting out of the goat business, and so in early 2021 Thaine took the reins of the cheese-making arm of Willowbrae Cheese, setting up a full production kitchen in a former ice cream shop a few streets from where he lives.
Thaine is eschewing the classic takeaway café model in favour of encouraging people to sit down and take their time at the cheese bar. His homemade ethos goes right to the heart of the operation, which includes hand thrown coffee cups and plates (some by him, some by his friend and local potter Kattleya Silang), house-pickled carrots and jalapenos on the sandwiches, and a coffee style that is entirely manual in its production. While you wait for your Five Senses single origin beans to brew, the sandwich press gets a work out toasting up golden parcels of haloumi, tomato and a harrissa-spiked béchamel; a classic croque monsieur; and a three-cheese toastie with Vegemite. One of their best sellers has the spirit of a wine bar snack, with a hyper verdant green filling of crushed peas and mint with goat’s milk béchamel, dolled up with some gruyere and pickled jalapeno for gentle heat.
You won’t be the only one who thinks a glass of natty vermentino would go a treat in this setting, and a liquor license in the works for 2022, but for now they have cold tinnies of Sobah non-alcoholic beer in the fridge, and a sweet and spicy fermented soft drink made from pineapple, jalapeno and cinnamon. When you’re done with your sambo you can grab cheese to go from the fridges, which showcases all the curds made on site. Grab an all-goat fetta for salad; spreadable chevre for fancy home toast; and little puffy clouds of bloomy ripened cheese that develop a soft runny layer beneath the rind and a soft fudgey heart for a killer cheeseboard opener.