A small bakery in Manhattan’s West Village is selling out of halloumi on a daily basis, as New Yorkers discover Cyprus’ national cheese, The Times has reported.

Hello Halloumi, a recent addition to the New York culinary scene, opened three weeks ago, and has caused quite the sensation on Greenwich Avenue, the paper said.

Publicised in an article in The Times on Friday, the venue has drawn large crowds with customers queuing for bagel bites, halloumi balls, and grilled sandwiches.

“I never heard of it and it’s delicious,” said 62-year-old Susan Shagrin, enjoying her first taste of the cheese.

In the UK, it has become a culinary staple over the past three decades, widely used in barbecues and as a meat substitute in burgers.

Despite being long popular in the UK, the cheese has proved niche in the US. Recent prices in Whole Foods, a New York food store, have halloumi reaching $25 per pound (0.45kg).

The bakery’s owner, Constantino Papadakis, a Cypriot immigrant, attributes its success to the novelty of a halloumi-centred store.

He imports the cheese directly from Cyprus and sells bagel bites for $1.95 per ounce and half grilled halloumi sandwiches for $4.

“The bagel bites have been selling out every single day,” he told The Times, admitting that he has to employ overnight bakers just to keep up with demand.

Halloumi’s limited presence in the US reflects both market size and cultural exposure.

According to an editorial in The Times Lifestyle, only 7,800 US retailers sell halloumi, compared with the 18,000 tonnes imported annually to the UK by its 335,000-strong British Cypriot community.

By contrast, the New York Cypriot population imports only 5,000 tonnes of halloumi.

Cultural familiarity also shapes adoption. Halloumi has long been embraced in Britain, popularised by chefs such as Delia Smith, and has gradually entered the mainstream alongside bagels, sushi and hummus.

In New York, it is still a novelty, but residents like 14-year-old Annika Bakhshi are enthusiastic, who told the newspaper: “This is exactly what New York needs.”

Papadakis, who spent a decade in private equity after working in hospitality, said a halloumi bakery “just made sense” in a city where most bakeries sell sweet rather than savoury pastries.

He imports the cheese directly from Cyprus and envisions halloumi as a part of everyday New Yorkers’ diets, reflecting both his personal passion and a strategic business vision.

The bakery’s pastry chef, Eleni Louca grew up making halloumi with her grandmother in the village of Ormidia in Larnaca.

Looking forward, Papadakis informed The Times he plans to expand to Brooklyn and Midtown, also exploring delivery options to reach a wider audience.

While US adoption is unlikely to surpass that in Cyprus, with the average person consuming eight kilograms annually, the success of Hello Halloumi demonstrates that the city is finally catching on to a cheese that has long been a staple of the national diet.