‘I deliver our cheese in person, in our electric van’
Philip Wilton, Wildes Cheese, London
food with plenty of vegan options.”
The hours are not so different from those as a barrister: Katona works from 8am until 2am. “But it’s the greatest privilege for my girls to see me relish my work, and Mowgli is an extension of our living room: I want them to feel invested, too – they even helped to design the logo.”
Her previous career prepared her for television and radio appearances on food shows, including Londonshire cheese is a gooey, medium to full-strength cheese with a velvety white coat. It’s made in Tottenham, with Jersey milk from Northiam Dairy in Rye (49 miles from N17), and demand for it outstrips supply.
“My career was bland: nothing brilliant, nothing awful. Then I was made redundant in the aftermath of the recession, in 2012, which forced me to make a change,” says its maker Philip Wilton, who went from disillusioned management consultant to urban cheesemaker.
“The thing I love about cheese – besides eating it – is the alchemy. Take milk, that simple, ubiquitous product, and the possibilities for making different cheeses are endless. I didn’t want to just press buttons and churn the same old handle – I wanted to try new things. We make fresh curd cheese, and if a couple want to wash a cheese in their favourite beer for their wedding, they can.”
Wilton had already experimented with making cheese for fun; learning the fundamentals of the craft on weekend courses at Reaseheath College in Nantwich, Cheshire, but also through “trial and error” at home.
Set on the idea, he and his partner Keith returned home to Tottenham from a research trip to the Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet, and BBC Two’s Recipes That Made Me
and Top of the Shop with Tom Kerridge.
“Being a barrister makes you comfortable in front of the camera because you spend your life talking to a judge whose job it is to derail you,” she says.
This winter, the 11th Mowgli will open in Bristol, with leases signed on more to follow.
mowglistreetfood.com aftermath of the 2011 riots – and decided to stay put, rather than move to the country. “We were struck by the sense of a community trying to heal itself, and decided we weren’t leaving.”
While cheesemaking is more readily associated with rolling country fields, Wilton’s urban location has proved central to the unusual appeal of Wildes Cheese, now stocked at Fortnum & Mason. You might also spot it on the cheese board at Vanilla Black and Ottolenghi’s Rovi, or at the newly opened Pick & Cheese in the West End – the world’s first conveyor-belt cheese bar.
“We’re trying to be an example of true localism, selling to the individuals that come to us and to businesses within the North Circular. I deliver it in person, in our electric van. We’re not a corporate, production-line manufacturer, which is fundamental to me.
“Lots of people told me nobody would buy cheese made in Tottenham, because all they think of is social deprivation – but we never hid from the fact that we’re an urban dairy: we never called ourselves ‘Sunny Cottage Cheese’. We stuck to who we are, nailed our colours to the mast, and people got on board with that.”
wildescheese.co.uk