Giorgio Linguanti makes Italian cheese at That’s Amore, Donnybrook

“EAT, eat,” says Giorgio Linguanti, as he presents a fresh ball of mozzarella.

That's Amore! Cheese. Donnybrook. Cheese Making. Giorgio Linguanti. Mozzarella Cheese.

“EAT, eat,” says Giorgio Linguanti, as he presents a fresh ball of mozzarella.

The initial salty tang transforms into a sweet curd, tasting nothing like the plastic variety found on supermarket shelves.

The mozzarella is the centrepiece of Giorgio’s That’s Amore cheese, produced on a farm in Donnybrook, north of Melbourne, where he transforms 55,000 litres of milk each week into about 25 preservative-free cheeses, as well as small batches of yoghurt and milk.

“We have T-shirts that read “I love mozzarella”. We have buffalo mozzarella, scamorza, a smoked variety, caciovallo, which uses different cultures and different techniques and of course bocconcini, the little balls.”

It was, he says, bocconcini leaf that was the first cheese he made.

“I called it leaf because I couldn’t say sheet in English, it sounded more like a swear word.”

It’s hard to believe that it was merely a decade ago that Giorgio, 41, arrived in Australia from Sicily with no English, planning to visit his uncle on a month’s holiday.

Instead, he fell in love with Tania and called Australia home, not missing Italy one bit.

“I found Australia was the place I belong, people are so friendly and the system works. In Italy if you know someone crook, you survive.”

With a background in advertising and a short stint running a regional produce shop back in Sicily, initially Giorgio got work around Melbourne where he could, with a stint in a cheese factory.

“I became interested in it. I got buckets of milk and started to experiment at home after work.

“I think in every job there’s a person who has a talent and this is one of my talents.”

In 2007, while working in another part-time job, Giorgio started selling his handmade cheeses, made at night after work. Such was the success he quickly moved in to a factory in Thomastown in 2008, producing the bocconcini leaf from 250 litres of milk.

Growth since then has skyrocketed. In 2010 he moved to Donnybrook, where he uses about 2000 litres of milk from the farm he works from, as well as milk from South Gippsland and buffalo milk from near Swan Hill.

He now employs 28 people and supplies top Melbourne restaurants, as well as restaurants and delis around Australia and his own outlet, La Latteria in Carlton.

His cheeses have won countless awards, with his spicy diavoletti (“little devil”) the champion Grand Dairy Awards cheese this year, and his burrata winning the same gong for the previous two years.

“The secret is this,” he says, pointing to the company name, “That’s Amore, love. It’s about the attention we put into it.

“The people I hire have no background and we train them to make preservative free, natural cheese, which has a short shelf life. Each cheese is handmade. This is our style.”

But is there a risk his growth will take him from artisan, to mass produced?

“They are handmade one by one. If I need to make more, I’ll just get more people.”

“I think there’s more space for Italian style cheeses in Australia. I’ll always try new flavours and varieties, otherwise I get bored.”

MORE: thatsamorecheese.com.au