La Fromagerie in Essaouira

If you don't like cheese, there is no point reading this here post as this one is about cheese. And lots of it. It's about a place called La Fromagerie in Morocco.

My friend Rebecca and I were very much drawn to this place after reading raving reviews about it on Tripadvisor, so decided to go and have a look when we were holidaying in Essaouira.

La Fromagerie is located a bit outside of town, in the countryside of Essaouira. You need a car to get there, so we hired a taxi to take us. La Fromagerie is not your bog standard restaurant serving lots of cheese. No it's actually a functioning cheese farm which also happens to be a B&B where you can have lunch or dinner. We went for lunch and had the place and the lovely host and his camels all to ourselves.

First up we were served a selection of house made cheese made of goats and camels milk. Yes, camels give perfectly nice milk as well and the camel's cheese was actually nicer than the goat's cheese.

The second course was a fried cheese puff with a lentil salad on the side.

Next was a soft goat's cheese salad with apples, nectarines and lettuce. Now normally I find that fruit has no business in a salad, but I completely changed my mind at La Fromagerie. It was a lovely and refreshing combination. 

We were starting to fill up quite a bit already, but there was more to come. My pre-main course was a cheesy tagine with a gooey tomato sauce and aubergine.

My main main was a large chunk of lamb without cheese this time. It was such a nice succulent piece of meat, but I really couldn't finish it. My friend who had passed on the lamb was having a delightful conversation with our Canadian host who was telling us how he got to setting up a cheese farm in Morocco. He further entertained us with a tour of the cheese factory and showed us the rooms he rents out mostly to surfer types.  

We sat back at our table where a humongous plate of cheese was waiting for us. I tried a few bits of cheese here and there, but I seriously was too full to eat anything else for the rest of the day really.

We did have some sweet mint tea to help the digestive process along a bit. Just before we left, the chef came out with chunks of old bread and asked us if we fancied feeding the camels. The answer was a loud 'hell yeah', so armed with a couple of bags of bread we headed to the camel pen. Best end to a cheesey lunch ever.