“The original idea was to have a shop filled with French products, including cutlery, ceramics, tablecloths and so on. Then, little by little, all those things became secondary. What I was selling most of was wine and cheese,” he recalls.

Radaelli orders directly from the Rungis wholesale market (“they call it the stomach of Paris”) in the French capital, which stocks hundreds of varieties of cheese. Not all the cheeses there are French, so when Radaelli’s customers began asking for Spanish Manchego, he decided that he’d better stock that, too.

“I’m quite reactive. Personally, I’m not a big fan of smoked cheeses, but I had a couple of customers asking for them, so I looked into what I could find in France, and now I’m selling Brézain [a smoked pasteurised cows milk cheese from the French Alps],” he says.

French cheeses, though, remain the focus of Le Magasin, along with French wines, and a range of cheese-friendly pastes and jams. It also stocks Toast For Cheese, an alternative to bread and biscuits from England’s Fine Cheese Co.

“My supplier in Paris recommended it. I tasted it, and it’s a fine product. And then I found out it is made in Bath [in England],” he says.

His range of about 30 different cow, goat and sheep’s milk cheeses changes regularly. Some are artisanal, from small producers using unpasteurised milk, or have a relatively short shelf life, but Radaelli says his biggest sellers are the longer lasting Comté and Manchego.

“I have standard French cheeses – Comté, Camembert, Brie – but I also try to introduce what I call speciality cheeses based on the season, and some stinky ones that I keep in small quantities. Some are from bigger producers which still make cheese in an artisanal way,” he says.

“Take, for example, our Comté from Charles Arnaud. Their wheels of cheese are natural, and aged in the cellar of an old fort in the Jura [a region in France], which they established was the best place for that process. They could have done it in a warehouse, but they do it the proper way.”

Before opening Cheese From Far in June last year, founder Ronald Massink imported cheese for hotels and restaurants in Hong Kong. But because so many of his Sai Kung neighbours asked to buy small quantities of what he was supplying, he decided to open a cheese shop in the area.

Like Radaelli, Massink believes that people prefer to buy cheese from small businesses, where they can ask questions and taste the products. He is a walking encyclopaedia of cheese lore, as those who have met him in his capacity as cheese master at the Conrad hotel’s Sunday brunches will know.

“People like to know the stories behind the cheeses,” he says. “For example, we have an Italian cheese, Ubriaco, which is drenched in wine – the drunken cheese, they call it. Farmers hid their cheese from their landlords in empty wine barrels. When they took it out, they found that it tasted nice.

“We have a French cheese called Valencay, from the Loire [Valley in France], which looks like a pyramid with the top cut off. The story is that Napoleon, coming back from losses in Egypt, was reminded of the pyramids when he saw the cheese, and he took his sword and angrily cut the top off. The cheesemaker started making it in that shape. There are all these stories, but nobody has time for that in a supermarket.”

Cheese From Far stocks a seasonally adjusted mixture of about 80 cheeses, of which around 70 per cent are from France or Italy, 15 to 20 per cent from the Netherlands, and the rest from elsewhere in Europe.

“We can respond to customer requests for quite obscure things,” Massink says. “We have one cheese from Norway, Gjetost [a brown goat’s milk cheese], because somebody asked for that. My supplier in the Netherlands has his own delicacy store and can obtain almost any cheese we ask for. Sometimes, it’s a bit more Italian or a bit more French but we try to bring in something different every time. Our customers like to try something new.”

The store, which sells wine, condiments and other delicacies, is also the Sai Kung outlet for breads from the Latvian-owned artisanal Mayse Bakery in Tai Po.

“Our emphasis is on Gouda, but there are a lot of different styles and recipes,” says shop manager Patrick Hung. The Dutch also has a branch in Central.

“At the moment we concentrate on four – young, mature, aged and XO, meaning extra old – aged for one month, four months, one year and two years, respectively. There is a distinct character to each of those ages. We also have goat cheese, a young one and an XO, and farm cheese – young, mature and aged, for the same time as the Gouda,” Hung says.

“We also have a range of special modern cheeses flavoured with truffle, pesto, and chilli and smoked cheese. From time to time, we add other new flavours. We had some success in the past with citrus lavender, a very interesting, purple coloured cheese. Lately, we’ve also had black lemon, an idea which came from licorice.”

Another popular cheese is Gouda flavoured with cumin. Although it sounds like a modern creation, it’s a flavour combination that dates back to the 17th century. The Dutch also stocks a range of South African wines and Dutch beers, and customers are encouraged to taste cheeses before they buy and to experiment with different drink pairings.

Cheese From Far, 22-40 Fuk Man Street, Sai Kung. tel: 9336 6852, cheesefromfar.com

The Dutch, 19 Hoi Pong Street, Sai Kung Old Town, Sai Kung, tel: 2792 6179, thedutch.hk

Le Magasin, 12 Hoi Pong Street, Sai Kung Old Town, Sai Kung, tel: 2791 0292, lemagasin21.com