Local foodies rejoiced as Harris Farm Markets opened its doors to the much-anticipated Leichhardt store in GPT’s Norton Plaza in Sydney’s Inner West, making it the largest Harris Farm store in the country.
The new and expanded Norton Plaza address has doubled in size and showcases a unique Italian-inspired mercato experience, complete with the brand’s first on-site cheesemaking facilities alongside its renowned mecca of boutique departments. Daily live cheese production by Sydney-based La Stella centres around the best raw materials, including cow’s milk sourced from the Sydney local Leppington Pastoral Company (Bringelly) and the finest buffalo milk imported from Campania. Resident cheesemaker Claudio Bamonte employs an array of traditional southern Italian techniques such as stretching, tying and moulding to produce handmade Italian favourites for customers: nodini, bocconcini, burrata, cheese roll, ricotta and buffalo mozzarella.
Sharing the space with La Stella is craft cured, fermented and aged meats from Byron Bay’s Salumi, a cellar door specialising in boutique Australian producers curated by certified sommelier Tamara Ellison, and Bourke Street Bakery’s social enterprise bakery, The Bread & Butter Project. Other fixtures of the space include Harris Farm’s much-loved meat cave, deli cave and flower market stocking many of Australia’s best producers: Jack’s Creek wagyu, Flinders Island saltgrass lamb, Hazeldene’s Farm chooks, Cape Grim meats, Valenca pork, and much more.
The new and improved retail experience includes a refit of the original Norton St Grocer design to incorporate bespoke local artwork such as largescale murals – including a flagship piece painted by Leichhardt Public School at the entrance – as well as ornate tiles, a Harris Farm-first concept of a Great Wall of Pasta (a wall offering over 220 pasta products) and a customer-favourite, Vegie Patch.
“We recognised that the link between our brand and the Italian heritage of the neighbourhood is the family dinner table,” says Harris Farm Markets co-CEO Tristan Harris. “We’re a family with Italian roots and run a family business so we’ve combined our ethos for sourcing and supplying the best ingredients with beautiful Italian hard-to-find imports to cater to all family gatherings.”
