Cheese fanatic from Tottenham earns his spurs

You don’t need to be in the countryside to run a dairy. Philip Wilton is producing world class cheese in the North London district better known for football
21 July 2015

A dream has become a reality for Philip Wilton, two years after he started making cheese in the heart of Haringey. Wilton left his day job as a management consultant to follow his passion and, after taking a course in Devon on how to make cheese, his micro-dairy is now producing almost three tonnes of cheese a year.

“I took voluntary redundancy,” he explains. “I wanted to do something that was creative and meaningful. I looked at brewing, bread making and patisseries. But I settled on cheese because it’s about skill – you need to care for your product. It starts with the milk.”

Wilton Cheese have 13 di erent varieties including the Londonshire, which Wilton describes as being ‘soft and creamy with a white coat’ and the Ally Pally which is a white cheese.

“We are creators, not manufacturers and we love to experiment,” he added. “I have no aspirations to grow. I do not want to lose the local appeal.”

That means keeping Wilton Cheese in North London. “I wanted to break the misconception that you have to leave London to make cheese,” he explained. “I have been here for over 40 years. I’m proud to be in Tottenham. The area has a bad press but is having a renaissance.”

For Wilton, the most important aspect of remaining close to his London roots is the feedback that he gets. “I enjoy taking our cheeses to market and speaking to the public about them,” he said. “I am lucky because I can walk to work through my local park to White Hart Lane and you just can’t beat that.”

He believes that cheese is best enjoyed while drinking beer. “I use beer to wash my cheese to give it a distinctive flavour. So what could be better to drink when eating your cheese than beer itself!”

Click Here to read all the latest stories from the Made of London series.

Next week we meet Philip Pittack and Martin White, the last remaining cloth merchants in Spitalfields

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