Food markets: Paris, Lisbon, Bali, Mexico, Montreal, Muscat, Adelaide, Hobart, Wellington
Get a taste for a place at these produce havens around the world.
Produce markets get to the heart of a travel destination. They’re perfect for watching the local citizens in action, seeing what they buy, what they pay, how they haggle and, in truth, how they live. The diverse range of food cooked on the premises is the real deal and they’re a top spot to pick up ingredients for lunch on the go. Overseas examples also present a great opportunity to try out, say, your French or Bahasa. Here’s a selection of the world’s great markets, including two local gems.
UBUD MORNING MARKET, BALI, INDONESIA
By necessity, market tours with chefs have to be at sparrow’s first yawn, when the produce is freshest. I am with sous-chef Adi of Four Seasons Sayan resort and he is setting a cracking pace. While I have been sleeping, stallholders have been busy unloading from trucks, vans and even wheelbarrows. The variety and volume are amazing. Adi says most produce comes from nearby farms and plantations. I ask how far away and he ponders my question for a moment. “Too much to walk,” he concludes. But walk we must, past piled-high vegetables, herbs and fruit, displayed neatly on lengths of batik fabric on the cement floors or atop trestles. Adi and I linger amid the leafy herbs and freshly ground spices and the air is thick with turmeric, sweet basil, wild ginger and lemongrass. He chooses ingredients for our cooking class later that morning but we are hungry right now. I follow Adi to a “breakfast stall” tucked away in a corner where the queue attests to its popularity. The lady in charge only makes gado gado, which she has been dishing up here for more than 20 years, smashing the peanuts and folding the blanched vegetables and tempeh into a curl of banana leaf. It costs barely the equivalent of $1 and tastes impossibly wholesome, like eating a salad bouquet. Daily, from sunrise to 9am.
SUSAN KUROSAWA
SALAMANCA MARKET, HOBART, TASMANIA
I plan any visit to Hobart to include a Saturday, the day the market sets up in Salamanca Place, ending in front of a row of sandstone buildings housing art galleries and pubs. (This weekend and next, nearby Princes Wharf hosts the Dark MOFO Winter Feast, a blowout bacchanalian banquet.) Come hungry, come early and bring cash (many stalls accept credit cards, but why risk it?). My breakfast pick is a long black and a perfectly chewy, American-style “everything” bagel with jalapeno schmear from the fabulous women at Bury Me Standing bagels, near the Davey Street entrance. I rarely resist a delicate salmon sausage from Silver Hill Fisch’s retro caravan, or maybe a juicy bratwurst with sauerkraut from the stall nearby. (I’m yet to brave the wallaby breakfast burrito.) There are plenty of genuinely unique crafts here, too, and the produce stalls proffer a multitude of berry varieties in summer and, in winter, crisp root vegetables and brussels sprouts still clinging to their stalks. I bring cooler bags and ice bricks and have been known to plead for space in my hotel’s restaurant fridge. As my apples, cheeses, fish sausages, seasonal veggies, mustards and jams go through the scanner at Hobart airport, I get knowing smiles from the security detail. I’m smuggling home (legally) the flavour of Tasmania. Saturday, 8.30am-3pm.
JANE NICHOLLS
ATWATER MARKET, MONTREAL, CANADA
Usually a market is all about what’s inside but it’s hard not to pause outside Montreal’s Atwater market to admire its strong art deco lines and soaring clock tower. This double-storey brick building, near the Lachine Canal, opened in 1933. Goodies depend upon the season but you might happen upon local quirks such as wild boar sausages spiked with ice cider (made from frozen apple juice) or pate Chinois (better known to Australians as shepherd’s pie). As a tourist, you might not be interested in butcher shops but displays of boned pheasants topped with apples and calvados or oranges and prunes are pretty as a picture. Atwater is also known for its cheesemongers and visitors flock here just to score Oka cheese, a semi-soft, washed-rind variety originally made by Trappist monks in Quebec. To compile the perfect summer pique-nique, start with a wedge of Oka, add a loaf of apple and maple bread from the Premiere Moisson bakery, a slice of duck a l’orange terrine, and go wild with a box or three of luscious berries. Point yourself towards the summit of Mount Royal, hiking via the low-key Give Peace a Chance installation that honours John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 bed-in at Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth. Daily, from 7am; closing time varies from 5pm-8pm.
KATRINA LOBLEY
NIZWA SOUK, MUSCAT, OMAN
Dates of every colour, taste and description are piled in great mounds beneath the roof of Nizwa Souk, southwest of Muscat, capital of Oman. There are the dark, glossy jewels called Al Khalas, picked near the end of the season; the wan sukari specimens, delivering bursts of flavour despite their jaundiced skins; the fat orbs called khunaizi that glow vivid red, and the tender-skinned fardh, which yield between my teeth like toffee. There are bland dates picked at the beginning of the season, and late-harvest dates oozing syrup; dates pasted with sesame seeds and dates dusted in savoury spices such as cardamom and zafaran. Outside the market, the date palms from which this precious cargo is harvested are rooted in the foothills of the Hajar Mountains. Irrigated by the traditional aflaj system of channels, they produce a large proportion of the country’s bountiful harvest. Dates are by no means the only food on Nizwa Souk’s menu; there’s Omani halwa, a jelly-like dessert suffused with saffron, cardamom and rosewater; and barrels overflow with dried limes and pulses and bright powdered spices. But who can resist these caramel-sweet pellets, dipped in fresh tahini and washed down with thimblefuls of cardamom-scented Omani coffee? Sunday-Thursday, 6am-1pm and 4pm-10pm; Friday, 5am-11am.
CATHERINE MARSHALL
BASTILLE MARKET, PARIS, FRANCE
It’s a bitterly cold April morning in Paris and my family is struggling to shake off the slow-mo weight of jet lag. That all changes when we shuffle through the gloom to the market at Bastille, overlooked by its winged, golden monument. While so much of the neighbourhood still sleeps, the place is thrumming with activity. Stalls are piled high with gleaming eggplants, waxy white asparagus spears, jewel-like strawberries and just about every fresh produce imaginable. There’s the doughy aroma of fresh bread, the funk of cheese, and rows and rows of saucisson. African women in elaborate headwear are chatting over platters of deep-fried samosas while, nearby, a man stirs a planet-sized pan of paella. It’s impossible to walk past the smoking bratwurst stand without ordering one stuffed into a fresh baguette and loaded with sauerkraut. We warm our chilled bones next to blazing upright grills where whole chickens and potatoes are roasting. And then we find the crepe stand. My kids watch mesmerised as the stall holder swirls his crepe-making wand around the circular hotplate and slathers his creations in lemon and sugar or Nutella, folds them into triangles, stuffs them into paper envelopes and hands them over. Heaven. Sunday, 7am-2.30pm; Thursday, 7am-3pm.
PENNY HUNTER
MERCADO DA RIBEIRA, LISBON, PORTUGAL
This mercado opened in the late 19th century but by the early 20th was dying as residents abandoned its food stalls and the (then) dodgy Cais do Sodre neighbourhood. Its fortunes changed in 2014 when a bunch of journalists from Time Out magazine breathed new life into the market’s Moorish dome by creating a giant mess hall serving some of Lisbon’s best eating. Most of the city’s top chefs have outlets here — 24 in all, plus eight bars — dishing up Top Chef winner Alexandre Silva’s confit pork belly and Marlene Vieira’s tempura fish and beans. Lisbon’s finest wine store, Garrafeira Nacional, has a concession as does favourite hamburger joint Honorato and ice-cream maker Santini. There’s something for most budgets, from croquettes and vinho verde for a few euro to slap-up lunches on the sunny terrace of seafood masters Marisqueira Azul. Market traders still offer fresh produce, fish and flowers in a side hall until 2pm, after which the festa begins. The Time Out market stays open to midnight (2am at weekends) and runs cooking classes, monthly “Soul Train” dances and regular concerts in the upstairs Studio. In other words, not your average market. Sunday-Wednesday, 10am-midnight; Thursday-Saturday, 10am-2am.
KENDALL HILL
ADELAIDE CENTRAL MARKET, SOUTH AUSTRALIA
My extended family thinks I go to Adelaide to visit them. Truth be told, the city’s main drawcard for me is its central market, which will soon celebrate its 150th anniversary. In two decades’ worth of jaunts to the City of Churches, not once have I failed to make the pilgrimage there, joining throngs of other worshippers revelling in its joyous atmosphere and snapping up tubs of olives, slabs of stinky cheese and parcels of cured meats. Each visit brings a fresh discovery — most recently, divine Venetian donuts and a fabulous artichoke and parmesan dip. Many of the sellers happily hand over morsels of, say, their taleggio or pate or sopressa to try before you buy. While hubby and I sip lattes at Big Table or Lucia’s cafe, our kids make a beeline for the rainbow displays of the Old Lolly Shop or the yoghurt stall, where bowls are topped with fruit puree or naughty chocolate adornments. Hosting a barbecue? Head to the meat and seafood section after midday on Saturday, when the vendors loudly spruik markdowns on their wares. Overloaded with shopping bags, I’m always envious of the many locals pulling their wheeled shopping carts filled to the brim with a week’s worth of goodies. Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, from 7am, closing time varies; Wednesday, Thursday, 9am-5.30pm.
■ adelaidecentralmarket.com.au
PENNY HUNTER
MERCADO ABELARDO L. RODRIGUEZ, MEXICO CITY
You can get almost anything at Plaza del Santo Domingo in Mexico’s historic centre — fake IDs, a shoe-shine, a certificate claiming you’re a doctor. But down the road at Mercado Abelardo L. Rodriguez, you’ll find something more precious by far — pure gold, or corn, more specifically. This staple foodstuff is considered by Mexicans to be as valuable as the precious metal. The importance of this produce is encapsulated in the murals decorating the vestibules and porticos at the market; painted by students under the guidance of the revolutionary artist Diego Rivera in the 1930s, they highlight the importance of corn in Mexico’s agrarian economy, and the risk of starvation faced by peasants living under the yoke of capitalism. If the people don’t have corn, Rivera was saying, they don’t have anything. There’s a superfluity of other produce at the market, including hillocks of mangoes and tomatoes and numberless types of chilli; baskets of seeds and fried crickets and avocadoes so gargantuan and inexpensive I could weep. But corn is king. Ears of corn sizzle in their husks on the coals; tortillas fly hot off the stove; chilli-stuffed tamales emerge steaming from the pot. I remove a cob from its husk wrapping and devour it on the street; it’s warm and nourishing and empowering, just like Rivera inferred it would be. Daily, 7am-6pm.
CATHERINE MARSHALL
HARBOURSIDE MARKET, WELLINGTON
New Zealand boasts it has “the coolest little capital in the world” and nothing captures this better than the relaxed Sunday morning market alongside Te Papa national museum on the capital’s waterfront. Wellington may be almost at the bottom of the world, but it sure isn’t culturally isolated. Try on for size freshly prepared Cambodian, Chinese, Chilean, Mexican, Filipino, French, German, Greek and Italian cuisine. And that’s just one side of the row of food trucks, stalls and cute caravans. There are also gourmet burgers and the best coffee. The aromas are intoxicating. From the House of Dumplings, I choose crystal prawns with garlic and chives, followed by a Dutch pancake and a delicious concoction from Smoothie Operator. I’m flying out the next day so can’t buy, but enjoy a wander through the fruit, vegetables and flower stalls and down to a boat selling the night’s seafood catch. This area has been a produce market for almost 100 years. Be prepared, Wellington is also the Windy City, and shelter is scarce. To complete the perfect day, head for Te Papa, which is one of the world’s great national museums (and it’s free). Sundays, 7.30am-2pm; closes 1pm in winter.
GRAHAM ERBACHER
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