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Blue Cheese Gets a Few Extra Colors at Faun


Cheese pairs well with an array of food and drinks—everything from fresh jalapeños to smoked duck has a perfect, cheesy match. Even sweets go well with certain cheeses, and one Brooklyn restaurant is playing with this combination in a surprising way.

Italian restaurant Faun, located in Prospect Heights, recently added sprinkles to its cheese plate. The sprinkles are placed on top of a cut of gorgonzola piccante, an Italian blue cheese. Also known as “mountain gorgonzola,” this cheese has an especially robust flavor for a blue, developed as it matures. Blue cheeses like this usually pair well with sweet flavors as a complement, but when assembling plates, chefs usually opt for sugar in the form of a fruit preserve.

While the sprinkles certainly stand out on Faun’s normally traditional menu, executive chef Brian Leth enjoys elements of playfulness in his food. “There’s a lot of humor in the food that I do,” he told Grub Street. The humor in this case also comes from the surprise factor, as the sprinkles aren’t included in the menu’s description of the plate.

That's a new one: cheese course at @faun.nyc; R to L, apricots, walnuts, Gorgonzola crusted with rainbow sprinkles

A photo posted by Julia Moskin (@juliamoskin) on

2016 is indisputably the year of rainbow food (remember this grilled cheese from the summer?), ever since a Brooklyn bakery’s rainbow bagels became an Internet sensation. The visual component is a huge part of consumption, especially when considering cheese (plate composition really is everything), but many have criticized rainbow foods for not looking … well,edible. Faun’s addition of sprinkles avoids many of the dangers of putting food coloring where it doesn’t belong, and opts for a whimsical, nostalgic approach.

Previously, the strangest use of sprinkles I’d seen was on toast while I was in the Netherlands (verdict: pretty good!), so maybe I’ll have to give this pairing a chance sometime.

Feature Photo Credit: Pink Sherbert | Wikimedia cc

Casey Walker

​Casey Walker is a Boston-based writer, constantly scoping out new recipes and restaurants.

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