If there’s one descriptor that makes a cheese instantly craveable, it’s gooey. Molten cheese has an almost primal allure, like a fireplace on a chilly night. Witness the widespread enthusiasm for grilled cheese, fondue and pizza margherita. Warmed cheese flowing like lava is a near-universal love language, but not every wheel is up to the task.
Fortunately, North Bay cheesemakers produce some magnificent meltables that reach peak usefulness in winter. For your cold-weather cooking, here’s a curated list of local melting cheeses guaranteed to brighten a gray day:
Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co.’s Toma Truffle cheese melted between slices of Acme levain with balsamic-roasted mushrooms and fig jam.
TOMA FROM POINT REYES FARMSTEAD CHEESE is the cheese world equivalent of the little black dress— always the right choice, whether you need packable protein for a kid’s lunch or a nibble to accompany cocktails. At room temperature, it has a seductive warm-butter aroma and sourcream flavor that make it disappear quickly on cheese boards. But meltability is its superpower. Toma is mild enough for a child’s grilled cheese sandwich or mac-and-cheese, but amenable to adult add-ins like kimchi or truffles.
Point Reyes cheesemaker Kuba Hemmerling says Toma’s stretchability—and stretchability in general—is largely a function of pH. “It’s not as good outside of certain ranges,” says Hemmerling, who oversees production at this familyowned West Marin creamery. If meltability is the goal, the ideal pH for a cultured cheese is around 5.3.
“At 5.1 the pulls are not as long,” says Hemmerling. “The cheese will rip a little.” That’s why warmed Toma, at the lower end of the meltable pH range, is less gooey than warmed mozzarella.
Still, Toma is a kitchen rock star. “I am a fan,” says Tracey Shepos Cenami, chef for Jackson Family Wines. “I used it in a mushroom crêpe, which was lovely. It gave it a little of that creamy decadence.”
Cenami uses Toma in an uptown grilled cheese, with roasted figs in the sandwich and a charred onion jam on the side. Point Reyes’s TomaTruffle sometimes replaces plain Toma, a substitution that opens up other possibilities. “You could put roasted mushrooms in there,” suggests the chef, “and if you want to go super bougie, you could use truffle butter.”
A melty wedge of Nicasio Valley Cheese’s San Geronimo being scraped raclette-style over roasted sausages and potatoes.
SAN GERONIMO FROM NICASIO VALLEY CHEESE, another family-run creamery with a century-old history in West Marin, is more pungent than Toma, thanks to frequent washing with brine as the wheels age. Washed-rind cheeses often have beefy aromas with hints of sautéed onion, mushrooms and custard, and San Geronimo is true to type. It is abundantly fragrant, with a supple texture and a pleasantly tart finish.
The Lafranchi family behind Nicasio Valley has roots in Ticino, the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. Grandfather Fredolino Lafranchi emigrated at the age of 17 and bought ranchland in West Marin in 1919. Brothers Rick and Scott Lafranchi—part of the third generation— launched cheesemaking on the ranch two decades ago under the guidance of a consultant from the Vallemaggia, their grandfather’s birthplace. San Geronimo, from a recipe the consultant devised, resembles Italian Fontina crossed with the bolder Swiss Raclette but leans more toward the latter, says Scott, who oversees operations. Made with their own Holstein milk, San Geronimo is about two months old when released but develops even more personality with age.
“I do a traditional raclette with it, with traditional garnishes: potatoes, speck and cornichons,” say Jason Pringle, executive chef of Montage Healdsburg. For large outdoor events, he puts a half wheel of San Geronimo on a raclette machine, a big draw “once guests get over the smell,” says the chef. As with many washed-rind cheeses, the fragrance is funkier than the taste. In the restaurant, where the raclette machine is impractical, he’ll layer sliced San Geronimo over boiled potatoes and melt the cheese under a salamander (broiler). Pringle occasionally adds San Geronimo to his fondue and suggests that it would elevate a cheeseburger.
Valley Ford Creamery Café’s grilled ham and kimchi sandwich with top and bottom layers of melted Highway 1 cheese.
HIGHWAY 1 FROM VALLEY FORD CHEESE is practically San Geronimo’s first cousin. The family that launched this Sonoma County creamery has similar origins in Switzerland’s Ticino, where relatives have long made cheese. Valley Ford cheesemaker Joe Moreda is the fourth generation on the farm, purchased in 1918 by his great-grandparents, part of a wave of Swiss-Italians and Italian-Swiss to settle in the area. Karen Bianchi-Moreda, Joe’s mother and the creamery’s first cheesemaker, describes Highway One as akin to Fontina. Like the Italian classic, it’s made with raw milk, in this case Jersey milk supplied by Jim Moreda, Joe’s brother. As they mature, wheels are washed with brine containing a proprietary mix of cultures, which help develop the rind and deepen its butterscotch-colored hue. “I want it really orange,” says Bianchi-Moreda, “and then we back off.”
In the creamery’s café, Highway One figures in every grilled cheese sandwich, whether partnered with ham and kimchi; or with caramelized onions and tri-tip; or in a grilled cheese with artichoke pesto frittata. “At home, it’s the cheese I melt over everything,” says Bianchi-Moreda. The semi-firm interior has a buttery color, with inviting aromas of melted butter, mushroom, walnut and buttermilk.
Cowgirl Creamery’s Wagon Wheel lends flavor and the perfect melt to the seasonally inspired pizzas at San Francisco’s Zuni Café.
WAGON WHEEL FROM COWGIRL CREAMERY was intended as a melting cheese from the get-go, designed at the request of Judy Rodgers, then the chef of San Francisco’s Zuni Café. Rodgers was hoping to wean herself from Italian cheese given that the rest of her menu was hyperlocal. She asked Cowgirl for an alternative to imported Asiago that would perform well on pizza, and Wagon Wheel was the outcome. Fifteen years later, under the guidance of creamery manager Matt Brown, this cheese tastes better than ever. A fresh slice has a pliable texture, smooth and creamy, with a buttery aroma and just enough of that meaty washed-rind character to make it enticing. Before she passed away, too early, from cancer, Rodgers gave Wagon Wheel a thumbs up. “As the pizza cools off, this cheese doesn’t get hard,” she said after experimenting with it at Zuni. “A lot of mozzarellas turn rubbery. This stays a little gooey-er. And I love that it’s local milk.”
CARMODY FROM BELLWETHER FARMS is the youngest cheese in this collection of meltables—only about six weeks old when released—but the oldest in terms of production. Liam Callahan and his mother, Cindy, developed it in 1996 after tasting a similar cheese in Italy. Their objective, says Callahan, was to produce a mild table cheese “with a great deal of fresh milk flavor.” Mission accomplished. Produced with local Jersey cow milk, Carmody has a buttery aroma and a buttermilk tang. Liam’s wife, Diana, says it’s her go-to cheese at home for quesadillas and grilled cheese. Or, she suggests, top a favorite chili with grated Carmody, green onions and Bellwether crème fraîche. Now there’s a mood lifter.
