Long renowned as Australia’s food bowl, this bountiful region of southwest NSW is now attracting serious food talent, lured by the fabulous climate and variety of top-quality produce. Food and lifestyle writer Lindy Alexander meets the passionate people putting the Riverina on the map. Photography by Alicia Taylor.
The Riverina is an Australian heavyweight when it comes to food production. Driving through the region, you are flanked by citrus groves as far as the eye can see, vineyards stretching to the horizon and small brown mountains of harvested almonds.
But only recently has it been recognised as a destination for food lovers, as young entrepreneurs return in droves to embrace their country roots and set up restaurants, wineries and tour companies, and producers and growers hop off their tractors to give farm tours as those behind the scenes take a step forward.
This is the heartland of farm-to-fork and paddock-to-plate, where more often than not, nearly everything you’re eating is local and seasonal. We meet the chefs, artisans, winemakers and growers sharing the bounty this region has to offer. Welcome to the Riverina – the best-kept foodie secret in Australia.
“Griffith is coming of age,” says Rod Pieper, the head chef of Hot Olive Bistro (Area Hotel, 208 Banna Ave, Griffith). Pieper draws on his regular trips to Texas at this casual restaurant with exposed brick and timber bench seats. Another house specialty is a ‘toppa’ – a thin pizza-like base topped with tomato, garlic, oregano and local olive oil. “A few places in town make toppas, but I know people who come especially to Griffith because they can’t get them anywhere else,” Pieper says.
Despite its industrial size, Calabria Family Wines (1283 Brayne Rd, Griffith) has the feel of a cosy, family-run winery. Bill Calabria’s Italian immigrant parents started making wine in their laundry tub in the ’40s, and while the scale has changed (Calabria now has around 90 employees and crushes 30,000 tonnes of grapes annually), the love is still there.
“The beauty of working for a familyowned winery is that we are here for the long term and can grow alternative varieties that work well in the region such as pinot bianco, vermentino and montepulciano,” says Emma Norbiato, one of Calabria’s six winemakers and winner of the 2016 Australian Female Winemaker of the Year.
Chef Luke Piccolo and his Italian-born partner, Fabiola Valtolina, have created a real buzz with their fine-dining restaurant, Limone (482 Banna Ave, Griffith; [02] 6962 3777). The chef’s family’s farm supplies much of the produce used in the rustic restaurant, which was hand built over eight years by his father, Peter. Luke started cooking at Peter’s cafe, Miei Amici (350 Banna Ave, Griffith), before working in Sydney and Italy.
Limone’s restrained but beautifully conceived menu regularly highlights local producers – such as Randall Organic Rice’s Koshihikari variety – a winner in the 2017 delicious. Produce Awards. “Griffith is an agricultural powerhouse,” Luke says. “We are lucky in the country because we are so involved with the producers.”
A rival to any oversized Australian icon is the enormous wine-barrel tasting room complete with staves and hoops at McWilliam’s Wines (Jack McWilliam Rd, Hanwood). Six consecutive generations of the McWilliam family have been winemakers.
One of their best-loved drops is the durif, a grape varietal matured in old oak casks that produces plummy, deeply spiced red wine.
In the Art Deco town of Leeton is Pages on Pine (119 Pine Ave), an intimate and charming restaurant run by Frenchman Eric Pages and his wife, Vanessa. The menu features many local ingredients, but Eric champions one particular producer each month. “I particularly love to cook beef cheeks with a sticky glaze,” he says. He marinates Junee beef for 48 hours in durif wine from Toorak Winery (Vineyard 279, Toorak Rd, Leeton).
Hop aboard the retro ’70s silver bus at Catania Fruit Salad Farm (Farm 43 Cox Rd, Hanwood) for a farm safari.
Owner Sharon Maugeri is a real character and wows visitors on a daily tour with her encyclopaedic knowledge of the 60 different varieties of fruit grown on what is one of the district’s oldest farms.
Make sure you pick up some ‘pissed prunes’ soaked in port from the farm shop on your way out.
Coolamon Cheese (87 Cowabbie St, Coolamon) came into being through a mix of crowd funding, grants and selling shares to locals. It’s housed in a cavernous building made cosy by recycled materials, tables built by the local Men’s Shed, raw brick walls and a bird’s-eye view into the kitchen and cheese-making facilities.
