DISCOVER THE QUEEN VICTORIA MARKET ON THE ULTIMATE FOODIE TOUR

You may not know this, but we have one of the best markets in the world right on our doorstep. The Queen Victoria Market is considered one of the best markets in the world with its huge array of fresh produce and products in one of the largest outdoor market areas in the southern hemisphere.

The Queen Victoria market conjures up childhood memories for me. Visiting the market was a weekly affair filled with unique smells that only a market has and tasty delights that were sampled during our weekly travails through the various market halls.

I hadn’t been to the Queen Victoria market for a food shop in a long time and joined the Ultimate Foodie Tour to help me rediscover the market. The two hour tour was hosted by a super friendly and knowledgeable guide Chris who shared with us some of the secrets of the market.

The tour takes you through the key areas of the market, and throughout the tour,  you stop off at a variety of outlets to sample the fresh produce and products on offer.

Starting with the Meat and Fish hall, the guide shared with the special design of the hall to help stallholders with moving stock around and keeping everything at temperature controlled. With 17 butchers, 10 seafood outlets and 5 poultry stores, you can find anything your heart could want, especially if you’re a seafood lover like myself, everything you could want from the sea. Oysters were part of the tastings for this section of the tour and you could hardly want anything fresher.

Moving onto the Dairy Hall, Chris explained that the unique design of the hall helped stall holders in the era of no refrigeration. If you’ve never looked up in the deli hall, I suggest you take note of the slanted roof to help minimise the time the sunlight shines directly in (so as not to melt butter or cheese which was sold in the hall in the ye olden days) and the specialised floors and marble counters to help keep produce cool. The Dairy Hall has specialised cheese stalls like The Epicurean from which we sampled some delicious cheeses and unique stalls like Tribal tastes from which we sampled some choice African delicacies.

There’s also The Traditional Pasta Shop which sells the freshest pasta (the tortellini we sampled was divine), Hellenic Deli that specialise in delicious Hellenic delights like Dolmades, olives and cured octopus, and The Polish Deli from where we sampled some amazing cured meats.

The last produce hall we visit is the Fruit and Vegetable shed. The outdoor shed was supposed to temporary when it was built (around the same time as when the Eiffel tower went up) and uses curved steel which was the design of the day.  Aisles of fresh fruit and vegetable featuring everything you could want or need as well as an organic aisle and a stall featuring indigenous fruits.

The penultimate stop on our tour was at the legendary American Donut Kitchen. The specialised food truck was the first of its kind back in the 50s when it first started. Since then it’s been an institution at the market and the line for freshly made and delicious hot jam donuts is something that shouldn’t be missed!

Our final stop of the tour reaches a climatic foodie end with wine tasting over a fresh fruit platter at ReWine, a stall that sells wine from barrels (ie. BYO your own bottle and you get delicious wine at a low price). It is the perfect way to end the two hour walking tour by putting your feet up and watching the world go by.

I really enjoyed the Ultimate Foodie tour, it was a great way for me to rediscover the market and better appreciate the time I spent as a child walking through the halls. If you’re looking for something a bit different to do in your own town or rediscover the joy of the market, then the Ultimate Foodie tour is no better way to see and experience the Queen Victoria Market.

For more information on the Queen Victoria Market tours visit http://qvm.com.au/tours/

The market also hosts a weekly night market every Wednesday night