# The best French cheeses

The must-have cheeses on a French cheese board, mostly PDO (France has 46), chosen from cheese guides, sales and polls of the French public's favourite cheeses.

- 44 votes · 18 items
- Dec 14, 2024 · Alexandre Dupont
- https://even.best/en/l/18/the-best-french-cheeses

## Top 15

1. **Comté** (6 · ▲6 ▼0) — Hard cooked cheese from the Jura mountains, made from raw Montbéliarde milk; France's top PDO cheese by volume.
2. **Roquefort** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — The 'king of cheeses': raw sheep's milk blue aged in the caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, protected since 1925.
3. **Époisses** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — Burgundy cheese washed in marc de Bourgogne, pungent and runny.
4. **Saint-Nectaire** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Semi-hard Auvergne cheese aged on rye straw, with a nutty taste.
5. **Brie de Meaux** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Large bloomy-rind wheel from Seine-et-Marne, crowned 'king of cheeses' at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
6. **Reblochon** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Washed-rind cheese from Savoie, essential for tartiflette.
7. **Camembert de Normandie** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Soft bloomy-rind raw milk cheese, ladle-moulded; not to be confused with industrial camembert.
8. **Crottin de Chavignol** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Small goat's cheese from the Sancerre area, delicious warm on a salad.
9. **Bleu d'Auvergne** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Cow's milk blue cheese, milder than Roquefort.
10. **Livarot** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — The Norman 'colonel', bound with five strips of sedge, with a strong aroma.
11. **Beaufort** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — The 'prince of gruyères', a hard cooked cheese from Savoie's alpine pastures with a concave rind.
12. **Mont d'Or** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Winter cheese from the Haut-Doubs wrapped in spruce, eaten with a spoon or baked hot.
13. **Fourme d'Ambert** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Cylindrical blue from the Forez mountains, one of the mildest French blues.
14. **Pont-l'Évêque** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Square washed-rind Norman cheese, one of the oldest in France.
15. **Munster** (0 · ▲1 ▼1) — Washed orange-rind cheese from Alsace and the Vosges, strong-smelling but mild.
16. **Morbier** (0 · ▲1 ▼1) — Jura cheese recognisable by its line of vegetable ash through the middle.
17. **Sainte-Maure de Touraine** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Ash-coated goat's cheese log with an engraved rye straw through it.
18. **Ossau-Iraty** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Sheep's milk cheese from the Basque Country and Béarn, served with black cherry jam.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.