Artisanal Cheesemaker Gets Ready To Open in Carmel Valley
- Sophie Hauville
- Jun 8, 2024
- 4 min read
Edible Monterey
June 18, 2024
by Michelle Magdalena
June 18, 2024 – Out on a lesser-known country road at the far end of Carmel Valley Village there is whisper of a new artisanal cheesemaker in town, lucky for us, she’s French!
Sophie Hauville pulls out containers of freshly made chèvre, local honey, herbed cheese and gruyère. It is melt in your mouth goodness. I shyly ask if I can have some more crackers, “You can dip your cracker right in the container, I’m French!” she replies.
Hauville and her partners—Ken Howe (her boyfriend) and Justin Saunders (who owns Dubbers in Salinas)—have been patiently waiting months for the county to clear permits so she can open Carmel Valley’s new creamery at 1 Esquiline Road, where Rosie’s Cracker Barrel used to be.
Once the permits are in place, Carmel Valley Creamery will be a place for locals and visitors alike to pick up picnic pleasures or stay and luxuriate in the warm valley sun and, most importantly, see and learn how cheese is actually made.
The chalet style building is also fondly known as Robles del Rio Country Club and Hauville says it’s where locals used to get their groceries back in the 1950s, when it took all day to drive to Monterey.
She shows me a book about Rosie’s Cracker Barrel, with photos of locals gathered outside. According to the book, the original owner, a beloved character named Rosie, would attract quite a cast of characters to hang out on warm summer nights in the valley—from author John Steinbeck to cartoonist Hank Ketchum, who created Dennis the Menace.
It’s a space loaded with history and, once it opens, Hauville’s new cheese shop is bound to make some summer memories of its own, with fresh coffee, pastries from Ad Astra Bread and ice cream from Revival, as well as her own raw goat milk.
“Goat milk is so good for kids.” Hauville says. Also for kids, big and small, the store will feature a stocked ice cream cooler. “I want kids to be able to come here and hang out like they did at Rosie’s Cracker Barrel,” she says.
Hauville grew up in Rouen, the capital of Normandy, France’s leading cheese producing region. “I grew up in a family that loves cheese,” she says. “We ate it at every meal and I was exposed to lots and lots of different French cheeses. Normandy makes Camembert, Neufchâtel, Boursin, Brie, Livarot, Pont Lévèque and many more. Cheese is my favorite food.”
After finishing a degree in business, Hauville moved to Chicago in 2002 where she worked in sales and marketing for 12 years before coming to California to get more sunshine.
Taking a break from her career, Hauville thought she would seek refuge in nature for a few months in Big Sur, but the shelter in place orders came down at the start of the pandemic and the next thing she knew, she went from spreadsheets to beekeeping on the Eichorn family farm.
That’s where she met longtime local cheese legend Charlie Cascio and he begged her to learn cheesemaking from him. Cascio was known for making the goat cheese exclusive to Big Sur Bakery and other high-end restaurants, and had been training workers to help him run a new private creamery at Carmel Valley Ranch.
“You have to be a guest at Carmel Valley Ranch to visit the cheese shop there,” Hauville says. After a couple of years milking goats and sheep and making fresh cheeses at the ranch, Hauville was ready to start her own creamery. So she and a support team that includes her sister Camille Hauville began preparing to open to the public in Carmel Valley.
Not only will the Carmel Valley Creamery be a new spot for local kids to get treats, but also a bit of an education. “So many people in America don’t know how cheese is made” Hauville says. The creamery will not only sell what they make, but also be a resource for education with a large viewing window of the kitchen where visitors can watch the cheesemakers in action or peek through windows into the rooms where the cheese is aged on wooden racks.
Watching cheese being made is a special experience that gives you a lot of respect for the craftsmanship and mystery around tradition of cheesemaking. For do-it-yourself visitors, the creamery will also sell cultures and small-scale cheesemaking equipment for those who want to try making cheese at home.
With localized food movements central to climate solutions, small farms and artisans are more important than ever to support. It’s as if we need to reinvent the food system to be more like Europe and Hauville is bringing that tradition to our community. Currently there are only two other local cheesemakers in the Monterey Bay area, Rebecca King at Garden Variety Cheeses in Royal Oaks and the Schoch Family Farmstead in Salinas.
Carmel Valley Creamery is planning a soft opening on Bastille Day, Sunday, July 14 and hopes to welcome the public to visit the creamery for some fresh cheese and cheeseboard essentials at the historic corner store—which also includes two other businesses, iron and sand sculptor Rusty Croft, known for his larger than life sand sculptures at Hacienda Hay and Feed, and Christine Cater’s Barefoot Floral.
Later this summer, Hauville plans to make fresh mozzarella and burrata to serve with the season’s best tomatoes. Eventually she hopes to host workshops on basic and advanced cheesemaking with the local legend himself, Charlie Cascio.
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