The London Story - Paxton & whitfield

My name is Hero Hirsh and I'm the manager of the Jermyn Street branch of Paxton & Whitfield. I spent a few years at college studying to be a pastry chef and then worked as a pastry chef for about five years afterwards, so that was where I began buying cheese, principally for other people, but nonetheless kind of getting experience in artisan cheeses. Well, Paxton & Whitfield is probably one of the country's oldest cheesemongers, so we've been established here since 1797 and we're very proud to have two royal warrants, meaning that we have the contract to supply cheese both to Buckingham Palace and to Clarence House. And based on very strict criteria on them, the history of our supply, the quality of our products, they'll decide whether we can continue to have those sort of seals of approval. What we have here is 150 artisan cheeses, so artisan meaning small production, really the best quality that we can possibly source in this country and throughout Europe. I would say in terms of surprising quantities, we do sell about six and a half tons of Stilton in December alone here. I think if you're looking to put a cheeseboard together, I would normally recommend to customers to have a variety of styles. So if they were going for three, maybe a hard, a soft and a blue cheese. If they want four cheeses, maybe a goat as well. And if they're looking for five cheeses, maybe a washed rind. We really do try and get the staff to engage with customers, get them to taste things and to start narrowing down exactly what it is that they're looking for. So aside from the sort of famous royal warrant clients we have, I mean, there's so much history in this area and so many famous people have come through it through the ages. I mean, apparently Lord Byron would get his cheese here. We know that Winston Churchill definitely shopped here as well. On my way to work, what I love doing is getting off a stop early. I walk past Buckingham Palace, I walk through St James's Park and through all the little historic passageways in St James's. It's just a great way to start the day. I think one of the best things about being in St James's is the fantastic history in this area, so there's some really beautiful buildings and it's just a beautiful area to be. Just moving somewhere where there's all these fantastic delis and specialist food shops, and more recently, in the last ten years or so, all the farmers' markets as well that have come up. I think, you know, it's easy to walk around London without sort of looking up properly and appreciating the architecture. So you do really have to train yourself, you know, to look around you and to see what fantastic things are there.