Chennai, India

from Arul’s parents in the 2000’s and saw that the formerly out of city borders would soon meet the rural area around them. “Agriculture or being a dairy farm alone was not going to enable us to hold on to this piece of land as it is. So we thought about having a restaurant here, a farm shop eventually, and so on”, she explained. The popularity of the restaurant and a natural excess of buffalo and cow’s milk presented them with opportunity, and a chance meeting with a Canadian hobby cheesemaker of Indian origin has led to a lasting collaboration. “We started making (buffalo) mozzarella in the ten days we were with him (and) haven’t stopped since. This year will be the 10 th year actually, of us being cheesemakers.” Making their own cheese completed the slow food ethos that The Farm’s restaurant is based on, and even changed how customers perceived them. “It’s not a thing to do in Chennai or India. There are more artisan makers in the country now but when we started it was unheard of that somebody was going to make cheese, and we find that we are the only farmstead cheesemakers in the country not buying milk from outside.” Encouraging customers to try their 17 cheeses is a process of education and the pair are conscious to not produce types that are already popular, like cheddar. “I think that’s slowly worked because today it doesn’t matter what we put on the cheese menu, people are happy to try it, which is great,” she explained adding that there are natural variations in the taste based on what the cattle are eating at a particular time of the year. “We’re very proud of that, because that shows how real the cheese is.”

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1/277, Semancheri Village, Old Mahabalipuram Rd.

Chennai 600119

IG: @thefarmchennai www.thefarmchennai.com