Cheese with big ambitions in little Warren, R.I.
WARREN, R.I. - "Would you like to try some lemon zest Stilton?"
Robert J. Healey Jr. is offering a visitor an aromatic wedge of cheese at the shop he opened in this East Bay town in January. It is soft, creamy, and crumbly, combining pungent saltiness with a sharp tang of citrus.
It's not a variety you'll find in your average grocery store, but it's hardly the most exotic offering here. On any given day, The Cheese Plate's selection might include an intensely rich triple-cream Australian cheese, a fruity blueberry Stilton, or a Welsh "Red Dragon" made with mustard seed and ale.
For each cheese, Healey has a suggested pairing. With a bleu cheese from Ireland's County Tipperary, how about an Indian chili curry? With a hard Italian sheep cheese, why not sweet honeycomb? Cheddar tastes divine with Granny Smith apple puree, he suggests, while aged Gouda with figs creates a flavor reminiscent of chocolate.
Not long ago, a cafe like this would have been unusual in tiny Warren, especially in this gritty part of town, where bars and tenement houses once dominated. Tucked between affluent Barrington and charming Bristol, Warren remains a modest, low-key community. But it carved out a place for itself on the tourist map in recent years as well-to-do out-of-towners discovered its inexpensive waterfront real estate, and antique stores and hip restaurants followed in their wake.
That touch of gentrification paved the way for Healey to pursue an idea he had considered for years: opening a business modeled after the casually elegant European cafes where customers can enjoy a light, leisurely snack of cheese, bread, wine, and fruit in a relaxed setting.
At The Cheese Plate, Healey sells exactly that: platters of four, five, sometimes six cheeses paired with dried fruits, nuts, condiments, olives, a sliced baguette, and occasionally chocolate. Cheeses can be themed by geography (French, Italian, New England), texture (soft, hard), or origin (goat, sheep, cow), and the selection changes daily.
Each plate, which typically feeds two, is $13. Wine costs extra, but thanks to a pump nitrogen system that helps keep open bottles fresh, the cafe is able to sell high-end offerings by the glass ($6 per 250-milliliter pour, the equivalent of about a third of a bottle). A few beers and ales are available, too.
Healey also wants to teach customers about different cheeses and introduce them to unexpected flavor combinations. Besides cheese, a typical platter might contain dried cranberries, strawberries, blueberries, walnuts, roasted eggplant, sun dried tomatoes, quince jam, mango curry, or a blend of dried pears and roasted pecans, a taste Healey likens to pecan pie.
The mixing and matching is "fun, because part of the experience is trying this and that, and pairing one flavor with another," says Healey, 51, a Warren native who is a bit of a cult figure in Rhode Island politics. He founded the Cool Moose Party, which encourages citizens to participate in their own governance. He produces the Rhode Island Diogenes, a weekly electronic newsletter for satirical political commentary. And a Providence Journal political blog has referred to him as a "perennial candidate for something," since he's launched multiple candidacies for governor and lieutenant governor, and has served as chairman of the local school committee.
Above all, Healey wants to give his customers a chance to enjoy life's simpler pleasures. At The Cheese Plate, lingering is encouraged, whether to read a book, write a novel, play chess, chat with friends, or merely while away the time.
The Cheese Plate also has a retail component. In separate display cases are fresh and frozen wild meats, some of them relatively rare, such as Kobe beef, buffalo, alligator, rattlesnake, and antelope. Come Memorial Day, the unofficial start of barbecue season, Healey plans to stock ostrich and kangaroo, as well. The shop also carries artisanal breads, including loaves seasoned with rosemary, studded with olives, and sprinkled with asiago cheese. Customers can order cheese plates in take-out boxes, too, which they sometimes carry across the street to the town dock to eat picnic-style in warm weather.
Growing up, "a lot of people in Warren ate regular supermarket cheese, so they didn't get to experience this," Healey says. "I want to educate the people in this area about different cheeses - and the one thing I guarantee is flavor."
Sacha Pfeiffer can be reached at pfeiffer@globe.com.
