Come along on this Italian tour of Five Dock in Canada Bay where we will show you the best shops to buy and eat and the stories behind each store. There's a cafe that sells a house blend using 73 types of beans, a butcher that goes that extra mile and has lounge seating, a gelateria with seasonal gelatos, a shop that serves up the most delicious sandwiches and deli items and a pasticceria that makes delicious cannoli and cakes. You will also find out how Canada Bay gets it name and the stories behind the graffiti that you find there when you do your own easy walking tour!
Five Dock is a suburb in the inner west of Sydney with a strong Italian connection. A quarter of the people living there are of Italian Ancestry, 7% were born in Italy and 11% of people speak Italian at home. This Local Sauce Tours Five Dock tour comprises of 5 stops of Italian businesses from a butcher, deli, café, gelateria and pasticceria. The tour was also planned to be held on June 1st to coincide with Repulica Day, the day in 1946 where Italy decided that it no longer wanted to be a monarchy.
We all meet at Fred Kelly place on Great North Road, the main street for the tour and there are some NQN readers on the tour (hi Paula and Rosemary!). Justin has everyone introduce themselves briefly and asks us to share which of the five stops we are most looking forward to today. He also explains the history of Italian migration to Australia and how the first Italian arrival pre-dates the First Fleet. James Matra and Antonio Ponto, both of Italian descent, were aboard the ship 'Endeavour' with Captain James Cook on his voyage of discovery in 1770.
After that the First Fleet brought convict Giuseppe Tuzo who later settled in Sydney. After that the gold rush brought more migrants. Italian farmers and indentured farmers settled in Far North Queensland to work on sugar cane farms and establish tight knit Italian communities. Volcanic eruptions caused many to flee Sicily and make a life in Australia. Today there are 4th-5th generation Italian families and in Sydney's Canada Bay many hail from Sicily, many from Lipari island. In fact there are more people from Lipari living in the Canada Bay area of Sydney than on the island itself.
1 - CaffèTeRia, Five Dock
A food tour's first stop should always be of the caffeinated variety and stepping into CaffèTeRia on the main road of Five Dock is like stepping into an old fashioned sweets store. Their specialty blend is the House Blend made using 7 different types of beans - where they come from is a closely guarded secret of the owner Max Foggetti from Naples. Their motto is to always use a blend rather than a single origin coffee. The result is a good coffee made with cocoa and hazelnut flavours.
Italian migrants were credited with bringing coffee culture to Australia. Alan Preston, an Australian man with Italian heritage owned Moors Espresso Bar close to Chinatown and was said to have made the first flat white in 1985 - and he has photographic proof that predates a claim from New Zealand about inventing the flat white. Derek Townsend from Karajoz Coffee Company in New Zealand claimed to have invented it but that was in 1986.
2 - Five Dock Meat Market Master Gourmet Butcher
Chances are your local butcher shop doesn't have a couch but at Five Dock Meat Market it's a practical consideration. You see all of the mince is ground fresh so the couches in the shop are for customers to wait for their freshly ground mince (or for perfectly trimmed lamb shanks). Owner Gus de Romanis comes from a 300 year old butchering history where the skills have been passed from father to son for many generations. They opened their store 38 years ago and are a classic example of a butcher shop that not only provides meat but also dispenses great cooking advice.
Take the porchetta for example. Gus and his mother Wanda come from Rome where porchetta hails from (in Ariccia). For his porchetta he doesn't score the skin at all. When you don’t score the skin the juices have nowhere else to go so they stay in the meat. He tells us the key to a perfect porchetta with crunchy crackling is to keep it at room temperature. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F and pour boiling water over the skin. Then you have 1 minute to rub a handful of salt all over the skin before placing it in the preheated oven on a rack in a baking tray. The reason is that the boiling water causes the cells to open and once they close you get the signature crunch of porchetta. He tells us no matter what size porchetta, the cooking time and temperature is first 200C/392F for 30 minutes and then 150C/300F for 3 hours. They also only stock Murray Valley female pork and can truss your porchetta ready for you. The schnitzel is delicious as are the beef sausages that are made with and without fennel in a natural casing.
"It’s not luck I’ve been here 38 years....A smile costs you nothing,' says Gus.
We take a walk to our next stop where Justin pauses by a mural that is a visual representation of how Canada Bay got its name. In 1840 some French Canadians were exiled from Quebec due to their anti colonial campaigning. They wanted more governmental involvement and access to influential roles and positions within the English-dominated public service. They ended up disembarking in Sydney for the journey to the Longbottom Stockade where they were imprisoned. Areas like Exile Bay, France Bay and Canada Bay were named in recognition of these French Canadians. The mural depicts chains and flowers from both Australia and Canada by artist Fintan Magee. In the nearby carpark there is also a long wall mural from artist Mulga.
3 - Cremeria Giuseppina
"NO tastings," says Stefano, behind the counter. He's standing cross armed and ready to scoop, for serious customers only. Francesca and her brother Angelo named their cremeria after their late mother Giuseppina and she and her husband Stefano are working there when we visit. The cremeria sells gelato and granita, the latter first seen 4,000 years old where they used snow to make granita or flavoured ice. After that the Arabs came to Sicily and introduced Sherbet an iced drink made with rose water flavoured fruit juice that evolved into granita.
The flavours available sit atop a display while the gelato sits in zinc lined copper containers with lids. There's Torrone with six nuts, Cassata with ricotta orange peel or Sicilian Marsala and cinnamon. Or you can go with a classic lemon or pistachio. I try two, a salted panna cotta which is like a salted fior de latte except very creamy although I really enjoy the yellow peach, a seasonal gelato. And if you're feeling like a Sicilian breakfast try the gelato in a brioche with a layer of Nutella and a topping of panna or cream. They also bake all of the breads and buns in-house.
4 - Raineri's Continental Delicatessen
If there's one stop that embodies the spirit of Five Dock it's Raineri's Continental Delicatessen. The deli has sat in this spot for decades and they're not going anywhere. It starts with Sarina and Peter Raineri who along with their son Sam and son in law Rocco tend to the 3 generations of customers that pop into the deli for all things Italian. Peter initially started with a food truck many decades ago where he would sell deli items from the back but then moved to a shopfront 45 years ago.
Sarina hands out samples of mild and hot salami, chilli chicken, ham, bread, olives and four types of cheese: Provolone, Jarslberg, goats cheese and Asiago. Some say that Rainier's is more Italian deli than a deli in Italy.
Sam also makes a mean sandwich. Bring your appetite and he can make you one of the freshest, most delicious sandwiches you can eat. $10 gets you the top of the line of the meat, cheese and antipasti cabinet. He shaves the cheese and meats fresh which takes extra time but it's worth it (and he has the routine down that you're not waiting any longer than if it were pre-sliced). They sell 120 of these wonderful sandwiches a day and it's also a great place to pick up fresh burrata, buffalo mozzarella, fresh bread and a huge range of pasta.
5 - Pasticceria Tamborrino
Our last stop is a sweet one at Tamborino a pasticceria that has been open for 20 years. While it is late in the afternoon there are still some of their signature items on display like the cannoli, sfogliatella and ricotta cake.
There's also fridges full of profiterole cakes coated in pistachio chocolate and a huge range of Italian cookies. I try a pistachio ganache tart with a thick crust and a creamy pistachio chocolate filling. But the best treat is the cannoli. It comes in four flavours: ricotta, chocolate, pistachio and vanilla. They sell more than 200 of these on a Saturday. I take a bite and the shell is crunchy crisp and the filling smooth and chocolatey. The perfect ending to a few hours eating!
So tell me Dear Reader, have you been to any of these shops? Also which one would you be most excited to visit?
NQN was a guest of Local Sauce Tours and Canada Bay Council but all opinions remain her own.
CaffèTeRia: 177 Great N Rd, Five Dock NSW 2046. Phone: 0426 276 794. Open Monday to Friday 5am-2pm, Saturday 7am-2pm, closed Sundays.
Five Dock Meat Market: 203 Great N Rd, Five Dock NSW 2046. Phone: (02) 9713 7232. Open Monday to Friday 7:30 am–5:30 pm, Saturday 7:30am-2:30pm, closed Sunday.
Cremeria Giuseppina: 84 Ramsay Rd, Five Dock NSW 2046. Phone: (02) 9712 4606. Wednesday 9am-9pm, Thursday to Saturday 9am-10pm, Sunday 9am-5pm
Raineri's Continental Delicatessen: 97 Great N Rd, Five Dock NSW 2046. Phone: (02) 9713 6886. Open Monday to Friday 7am-4:30pm, Saturday 7am-3pm, Sunday 7am-12:30pm.
Pasticceria Tamborrino: 75 Great N Rd, Five Dock NSW 2046. Phone: (02) 9712 1461. Monday closed, Tuesday & Wednesday 7 am–3 pm, Thursday 7 am–4 pm, Friday & Saturday 7 am–5 pm, Sunday 7 am–1 pm.
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