Can fodorites recommend any specility shops in London for cheese? Thanks in advance.

Neal's place

The dirty secret about cheese in London is that if you want to buy cheese - as opposed to walking into a place with lots of cheesy smells and a general air of enthusiasm - the two best places absolutely aren't speciality stores.

The Waitrose branch in the basement of John Lewis Oxford St, and the cheese section of the Whole Foods in Kensington High St (assuming when you're here WFM haven't tired of losing millions a year on their monument to management self-indulgence) are almost certainly the best places for buying cheese in central London. Waitrose staff also know their cheese: WFM staff knowledge is a great deal patchier

If speciality shops matter to you, La Fromagerie in Moxon St W1U 4EW or 30 Highbury Park N5 2AA is where most people who think chain stores are a bit... buy their cheese (at any rate, at the dinner parties I go to)

Rippon Cheese Stores in Upper Tachborook St SW1V 1SW is the other speciality place people who like food actually shop at.

Androuet, the French cheese shops most people stock up at when driving home from a holiday in France or Italy, is opening a London branch soon (www.androuet.co.uk)

It's normal on boards like this to rave over Paxton & Whitfield in Jermyn St, which is certainly a good example of what cheese shops used to be like before good cheese became commonplace. On a good day, it'll have a range almost as good as a second-rate suburban Tesco - but the smells are nice. Reliable for cheddar and stilton - but really trading on past glories and absurdly touristy

The other place on most tourist trails is Neals Yard Dairy in Shorts Garden WC2H 9AT and Borough Market. A bit redolent of the 80s, but a nice range of basic English cheese.

OMG - Borough Market was amazing. Most of our "what we did on our summer vacation" pictures were of the cheeses at Borough Market! (The rest of the market ware wasn't half bad, either.)

I'd definitely go to Borough Market for lots of things. I love the hand dived scallops for a light lunch and lots of samples! The meats look so beautiful and several cheese vendors

This place in Greenwich is excellent...

http://www.cheese-board.co.uk/

I would say Borough Market. The cheese is no better than the places Flannuer mentions but you do get to try before you buy and usually you can talk to the people who made it.

Plus it's a nice place to be in general.

There are few places attached to Restaurants (St Johns being the best IMHO) which are good.

Oh and there is Wensleydale's which is legendary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0

I think there is also a cheese shop by Ludgate Circus in front of St Pauls

It's called Smegma. Very selective clientelle.

thanks for all the feedback.

CW, where is Whole Food on Kennsington High St?

CW, I found the address, for anybody reading this and is interested the Whole Foods market is in the Barkers Building, 63 - 97 Kensington High Street.

my post should have read Neil's yard