Don't feel bleu, it'll all get cheddar

time to get cheesy

Hello, everyone!

Today’s edition of the newsletter is a really fun one, because it involves a place that I had no idea existed until recently. I’d discovered it through Instagram, when my friend Erika, aka @cheesesexdeath, posted about it.

cheesesexdeath

A post shared by @cheesesexdeath

Erika Kubick is the author of the book Cheese Sex Death, or the “bible for the cheese obsessed,” as she puts it. She makes the subject of cheese fun, accessible, and inclusive, especially for people like me, who admittedly know jack shit about it. She’s also got a very popular TikTok account. I highly recommend you follow her on your social media platform of choice, because she introduces you to different cheeses, describes what they taste like in accessible terms, and what to pair them with. The best part is that she makes learning about cheese fun.

The video Erika posted a few weeks back introduced us to a fascinating cheese shop that serves as a retailer, an event space, and most importantly, for today’s purposes, a restaurant. Its storefront is located in a stretch of newer construction in Logan Square, and apparently I’ve passed it a million times without knowing it.

The shop in question is Beautiful Rind on Milwaukee Avenue, just northwest of Western Avenue.

From what I’ve learned, Beautiful Rind has been around for three years now, and was opened by one of the former managers of Pastoral, an excellent cheese shop which I wish was still around. Three years?! Where have I been?

The shopping section is compact, but it manages to pack in an impressive amount of things like small-batch chocolate along with hard-to-find canned seafood (which generally runs between $10-$17 per can).

The cheese case doesn’t look big, but it’s filled with a large variety of cheeses, and the cheesemongers in back are great. They’re approachable, easygoing, patient, and will explain everything you want to know.

Davida and I came as walk-ins, but the majority of visitors who sat down to eat had reservations (you can book yours on Tock), so it might be a better idea for you to plan out your visit.

The menu has a lot of items on it, but it mainly consists of finger food like cheese and cheesemonger-curated flights, charcuterie, tinned seafood, snacks, pickles, spreads, sandwiches, and salad. There’s an alcoholic beverage pairing menu as well.

Since Davida and I came in feeling like helpless children, we decided to go with the flow and order the adorably named “Spooooky Cheese Flight” ($18) with that name arbitrarily guiding our decision.

Don’t worry, there’s nothing scary about it. It comes with three cheeses (starting from the upper left, clockwise), which are mimolette, Red Rock, and Linedeline. We also tacked on the cheesemonger’s special selection on the menu, which is called Foxglove ($10, center).

The mimolette is an aged cheese that might look like an intense cheddar, but it’s more along the lines of a crumbly parmesan; it gets that fun orange color by the addition of annatto. It comes with this absolutely fascinating kiwi jam that’s floral and sweet—one of the employees told us they make it in-house using kiwi cooked down with mango, along with some sugar.

The Red Rock is like a cheddar and blue cheese hybrid which tastes like the best of both worlds, and the Linedeline is a creamy tangy ash-ripened goat cheese. These two cheeses come with fruit preserves for pairing.

My favorite of the bunch, however, was the cheesemonger-featured Foxglove, which is a double cream cheese that’s gooey and a little stinky. Its flavors only grow more complex when you pair it with the candied walnuts. The flight also comes with a sliced baguette on the side as a vehicle for all that cheese.

Expect the menu to change over time, as Beautiful Rind is one of those places whose stock rotates frequently. Davida and I just couldn’t have been more delighted by how fun the pairings were, and just how different the cheeses were from each other. If you’re feeling a little more frisky, there’s a five cheese plate ($32) chosen by the cheesemongers as well, along with some other combinations that include charcuterie.

Maybe it’s just the cranky old man in me, but I’ve always had mixed feelings about cheese plates at most restaurants, since they always feel so small and so expensive. In this case, however, $18 for three really interesting cheeses, plus pairings and bread, is a steal.

Plus, when you think about it, just how much cheese can you eat in one sitting? It’s probably less than you think. We overheard that the table next to us, who’d come for a full cheese tasting, would be receiving 10 ounces of cheese per person. That’s over a half-pound of cheese, each. I wholeheartedly approve, but I hope they survived.

Being from Wisconsin, Davida wanted to try the beer cheese ($10), which comes with two blazing hot Bavarian pretzels.

It’s cheddar cheese and pilsner-based, and comes with a bottle of hot sauce on the side for perking up as you see fit. The beer cheese has a metric ton of sharp flavor packed into it, and it thickens up as it cools off, which transforms it from like a lava-like queso dip to more of a spread.

There’s some pretty great cheese accompaniments to be had too, like these savory anchovy-filled olives ($6).

Again, I’m used to small portions when it comes to finger food, but they serve you a somewhat hilariously large amount of these olives. They’re extra savory due to the anchovies, but thankfully aren’t overly salty. They’d make a perfect garnish to a dirty martini, and later as we were browsing, I found that the shop sells them to take home.

Then there’s the house-made pickle flight ($14), which is all of Beautiful Rind’s pickles on one plate (from left to right: dill, bread and butter, spicy).

At this point I know we’d probably had enough sodium for two days, but it was worth it for these pickles alone. The dill pickles are light and surprisingly sweet, the bread and butter ones are sweet and sharp, and the spicy pickles, while looking relatively benign, have an unexpected pop of spice at the end.

And for those who don’t feel like grazing, there’s the sandwiches, which include the prosciutto and taleggio sandwich ($13).

It comes with a generous amount of prosciutto di Parma and taleggio cheese, accompanied with whole grain mustard and arugula on a sliced baguette. I’m not sure how to describe the experience of eating this, because it might be one of the most intense sandwiches I’ve ever eaten. It’s funky, pungent, and salty all at once, and pulls zero punches when it comes to flavor.

The pimento cheese and bacon sandwich ($14) has a similar effect.

This sandwich, which has an astounding amount of pimento cheese on it, is a no-holds-barred attack of sharp cheddar and bacon. It’s one intensely tangy bite after another, and isn’t exactly for the faint of heart. I have no choice but to respect it for its power, but I’d advise that it’s a sandwich you’ll want to split with someone, and in fact, I’d advise that for the prosciutto and taleggio sandwich as well.

That being said, Davida and I came to the conclusion that cheese tasting is the best option at Beautiful Rind. It’s not because we disliked the sandwiches, but more because it’s really what you should do at a wine and cheese shop. Eating through mounds of cheese, charcuterie, pickles, and tinned seafood together is a joyfully interactive experience. Not only are you reaching across the table for a variety of complex flavors, every bite is a choose-your-own-adventure game of experimentation and exploration.

And Davida and I did something we don’t always do when we eat, which was focus on talking about the food in front of us. That made it feel like a bonding experience, and was the early autumn date we didn’t know we needed. We also saw friends catching up with each other over cheese and wine, which was a wonderful thing to watch.

The other thing to note is that there’s not a lot of cheese shops in Chicago. It’s a weirdly underserved market—not that you necessarily need a ton of cheese shops per capita, but if you live here, how many dedicated cheese shops can you think of off the top of your head?

I’m happy to say that people seem to appreciate it, because Beautiful Rind was busy the entire time we were there. If you’ve got a wide-open afternoon or a lazy weekend planned sometime this fall, I think it’s the perfect place to unwind, relax, and push the limits of just how much cheese you’re capable of consuming. But don’t forget to bring someone with you, because sharing is the secret ingredient that makes all the cheese taste so much better.

Beautiful Rind
2211 N Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL 60647
(312) 300-4535

Hours:
Open every day except Monday (closed): 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Note: I suggest a reservation if you want to dine in, just in case it’s busy that day, but you can still walk in.

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Thanks for reading today’s cheesy edition of The Party Cut! I’m obviously annoyed with myself for not knowing about Beautiful Rind, but better late than never. I’m guessing plenty of you already knew about this place.

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Okay, everyone, have a great week. Go spoil yourself with some cheese. Love you guys, and I’ll talk to you soon.