When he was young, Cherif did not fall into cheese but into a rural life, though ! Second child of a large family, he grew up in a country house with a large garden. “My parents cultivated their vegetables there, and very young, my father gave me a piece of land, as to each of his children, asking me to take care of it.” He will learn how to grow wheat and harvest all kinds of vegetables. “We also had a farm with ducks, chickens and even a donkey”. This taught him to come into contact with the earth and the products of nature, and to know the authentic flavors. “When I was picking the fresh chives from the garden, there was such an aromatic explosion that it was carved in my memory !” With his mother, he will learn the hook, sewing, tapestry and cooking and as “she was music lover, his childhood was surrounded by music”. His passion for photography also comes from there, when his father gave him a professional camera “with a bellows and an old-fashioned room”, to take the family pictures.

Chérif was among the first of his class at school, but very young he understood that to surpass himself, one has to do what he really likes. And he grew up in a Cartesian education that gave him “a sense of duty and values ​​of righteousness and justice”. To honor his parents, he then reached the highest level of education and wrote a thesis on Greek philosophy in order to become researcher. It was there that he was told that the antique and medieval chair would be closed without any coming open position in higher education. A real blow that will question his life goals and choices and will open to him the doors of another philosophy, that of taste, art and encounters.

At that time, he was 24 years old and he worked as a handler “at a cheese artist who had the art and the secret of the refining. This is where I discovered the world of cheese and it was a thunderbolt! I tasted everything, enjoying the associations of flavors with an ever-evolving product. And I said to myself: why not do what you like in your life?” Cooking and gastronomy had marked his childhood. And even his work on Epicure leads him to this matter, made of raw milk and patience, which allows him to express himself. “I then started a business that was not known at that time, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris”. He worked on the quality of the products and his place will enter the gourmet guides after two years only. A success for this autodidact who has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and experiences. In 1989, he will buy his own cheese boutique which he will call Fil’O’Fromage. It was in a small Parisian shop, designed with Art Deco 1930. “The fridges were still with ice cubes and there was a soul of time, with green bluish Italian marble and antique lanterns”, and he will keep this spirit by adding only a ray of chilled cheeses.

During these years, Chérif Boubrit will also train at the prestigious Ferrandi school as a caterer, then oenologist and will create a qualitative professional network, travelling around France and Europe in search of the best producers of cheeses and wines. “We used to visit the vineyards and taste all the wines on different years; the same grape variety from the same terroir, but with different appellations in a progressive increase. And that was a click!” Chérif wants to associate wines and cheeses to educate the taste of his customers in a convivial atmosphere. He will refine his project for 4 years until he will find a site in the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand district where to launch his concept. He will there become winner of the Grand Prix of the wine press in restaurants, Panaché d’or of Gastronomy of France and Navarre and holder of the apprentice masters’ Award of Excellence by the Chamber of Commerce.