Bread. Baguette is France’s most neutral bread but not your only option. Stronger cheeses can go head to head with darker, more rugged breads. We’ll even go so far as to indulge in bread with walnuts but try to stick to real bread with a strong, crispy crust and
irregular, fragrant dough.

Condiments. The French don’t do jam, sun-dried tomatoes and all that jazz. Nuts are acceptable as many cheeses have hazelnut notes to begin with. Walnuts and pears are also good accompaniments to Roquefort. But hey, never let the French tell you what to do.

Reblochon. Most French cheeses don’t like getting cooked, unlike this Alpine favorite. Put on potatoes, bacon, cream and onions, bake, enjoy, gain 10lbs.

Mimolette is a flavorful cow’s milk cheese from Northern France that resembles Dutch cheeses. It’s a hard cheese and can get rock hard as it ages, taking on a increasingly sharp flavor with hazelnut accents.

Roquefort is made from ewe’s milk (a female sheep). It’s the strongest cheese on this plate—a sharp, complex king of cheeses. Apart from Brin d’Amour, all the other cheeses on this plate are made from cow’s milk, but goat’s milk makes great cheese, too.

This Brie has truffles in it. All kinds of stuff get stuffed into cheese but, frankly, it’s silly. Cheese is great to stuff food, not the other way around.

Although cheeses have very different flavors, you can still broadly categorize them from mild (a fresh goat’s milk cheese) to extremely strong (a mature, delightful sticky and stinky Epoisses). With this plate, we’d start with this Corsican Brin d’Amour, made from Ewe’s milk and rolled in juniper and rosemary, as it was still a bit young.

Coulommier is not an AOC cheese, which is rare. AOC, which also works for wine, is a French standard that ascribes a particular food to one region. Bordeaux can only be made in the Bordelais region, Champagne can only be made in Champagne, Brie, in Brie, etc. Coulommier’s taste lies somewhere between Camembert and Brie.

Camembert raises the essential question of aging. Cheese is not always ready to be eaten when you buy it and your fridge is too cold to let it mature. Like wine, your cheese needs to breathe at cellar temperature (12-16 degrees). Make sure your Camembert is in a near liquid state before you eat it. Otherwise, it will have a floury texture and less flavor.

Buffets With Good Cheese

Here are the best buffets with the finest fromages (that’s cheese, in French) on offer.

1. Basilico
Home made cheeses like the truffle honey, lemon honey, chili honey, plum paste and quince paste are available during Basilico’s lunch buffet and during dinner at the Antipasti Buffet. On Saturday for the lunch buffet and on Sunday, the cheeses will also be served. There are also items like figs, salami, dried fruit, assorted nuts and assorted crackers to go with the offerings. 2/F The Regent Singapore, 1 Cuscaden Rd., 6725-3232.

2. Carousel
Try the home made fruit cheese and excellent herb and garlic cheese. Those alone are worth the price of the buffet. Royal Plaza On Scotts, 25 Scotts Rd., 6589-7799.

3. MELT ~ The World Café
At $56 per person for lunch and $68 per person for dinner (Sunday to Wednesday) and $78 for dinner (Thursday to Saturday), you can get a wide range of cheese from parmesan and red wine cheddar to Manchego and Bresse bleu cheeses at their buffet. In addition to the wide selection of fromage, there is also the BBQ burger and seafood counter for Sunday brunch, which starts at $98 per person or $138 per person inclusive of an unlimited flow of champagne, wine, beer, soft drinks and juices. 4/F Mandarin Oriental Hotel Singapore, 5 Raffles Ave., 6885-3082.

4. Mezza9
Enjoy cheese from the famous Philippe Olivier Cheese Shop for Sunday brunch at $138 per person, and get a little tipsy with complimentary free flow of Perrier-Jouët Champagne Grand Brut and Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc. Grand Hyatt Singapore Hotel, 10 Scotts Rd., 6732-1234.

5. The Square @ Furama
If you are a real cheese freak, you can have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner here. You can choose from six types of cream cheese from Down Under for breakfast and eight types of processed cheese from France for lunch and dinner. 2/F Furama Riverfront Singapore, 405 Havelock Rd., 6739-6468.

Cheese a la Carte

Besides the usual suspects like Cold Storage and Carrefour, here are some places where quality precedes quantity.

The Cellar Door
A wine and cheese deli that sells a selection of New Zealand wines and gourmet foods. It even has its very own cheese room. #01‑108/109 VivoCity, 1 Harbourfront Walk, 6463‑5296.

Huber’s Butchery
This well known family owned and operated business sells a number of fresh food items, including a myraid of cheese. Feast your eyes on their selection at hubers.com.sg. 122 Upper Bukit, Timah Rd., 6465‑0122.

Jones the Grocer
Famed for their special cheese room, you can get a wide variety of cheese here. You can even sample the goods before buying. This is truly a paradise for cheese fans. #01‑12 Blk. 9 Dempsey Hill, Dempsey Rd., 6476‑1512.

La Fromagerie
The first artisanal cheese and gourmet concept store in Singapore is brought to you by the critically acclaimed and award‑winning team of chef Julien Bompard and Edith Lai‑Bompard of the renowned Le Saint Julien Restaurant. 5 Mohamedd Sultan Rd., 6732‑6269.

NTUC FairPrice Finest
Fulfill all your cheese needs here. Notable ones include the livarot, which is one of the oldest cheeses in Normandie. Look out for the Crottin de Chavignol, which is the most famous cheese produced in the Loire Valley, France. G/F TripleOne Somerset,111 Somerset Rd.