Merion Park Cheese has joined forces with Erivan Dairy, an Oreland-based Armenian yogurt producer, to bring authentic Middle Eastern labaneh cheese to the Philadelphia market, writes Craig LaBan for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The spreadable cheese named Love-A-Neh has been causing quite a stir lately, attracting the attention of many prominent area chefs, like Michael Solomonov of Zahav.

Merion Park cheesemaker, Emiliano Tatar, experimented with Erivan’s yogurt and found that straining it through fine mesh before adding salt ended up replicating the zesty, tart, and savory labanehs he grew up eating.

“It’s amazing,” said Israeli-born Solomonov. “It’s funky, cheesy and there’s something really robust about the culture in it.”

The chef has been using around 30 pounds of Love-A-Neh a week in various ways, such as serving it with compressed sweet persimmons or using it as the base for smoked potatoes and romanesco.

Since this is still a new product, the hand-crafted version costs more than most commercial versions. However the $10, 8-ounce container also offers higher quality, since it is made the traditional way, there are no shortcuts taken.

“It’s just so much more complex (than most commercial versions),” said Solomonov.

Read more about the collaboration in The Philadelphia Inquirer.