Some towns have a big banana or a big prawn. Griffith has a big wine barrel, a salami scene taken very seriously and a bakery with a line out the door.
In fact, despite the fact that this town in the NSW Riverina has has been turning out nonna approved gnocchi for most of a century, somehow it still flies under the radar. Nobody in your group chat has mentioned it, which is exactly why you should go.
The festival you missed, and why it hardly matters
First, the bad news. The big annual celebration, A Taste of Italy, has wrapped for the year, so you’ll need to plan a return trip for next August. It’s a week of cooking classes, cellar door tastings and long lunches among the vines, headlined by the Festa del Salsicce e Salami, a contest for the best homemade salami in town. Tickets go fast. Locals take salami seriously.
You haven’t missed much, though. The festival is the town’s normal routine with bunting. Visit any other time of year and you get the same food with shorter queues.
How a farming town became Little Italy
The food makes sense once you know who cooked it first. Italian families began arriving in the early 1900s, with migrants from Sicily, Calabria and beyond. Many of the earlier settlers came from Veneto. They turned up just as the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area was converting dry plains into farmland, which suited everyone, because they brought the know-how: grapes, vegetables and a firm belief that dinner is not an afterthought.
The traditions stuck. Families still make their own salami, cure their own olives and gather for sauce day, an annual tomato-bottling effort that sounds like a chore and works more like a reunion. Ask how much of the town has Italian heritage and you’ll hear “a big share”, with local sources disagreeing on exactly how big. Everyone has a view on passata. For the long version, the Griffith Italian Museum tells the migrant stories properly.
Where to eat
Zecca Handmade Italian is the obvious starting point. It occupies a 1930s Art Deco building that used to be the Rural Bank, hence the name: zecca is Italian for mint, as in the place that makes money. The pasta is made with Riverina wheat, and the menu strays into deeper cuts like raschiatelli from Basilicata. The chalkboard changes constantly. Order from it.
Limone Dining brings big smoke cred to the country. Chef-owner Luke Piccolo trained in Sydney at Pilu at Freshwater and Pendolino, then brought it all home to open his own place.
His first cooking lessons came from his nonna, which is the only credential that really counts. Murray cod from Aquna appears on his menu and several others around town, an impressive feat so far from the coast.
La Scala has been feeding Griffith since 1977, which makes it the town’s elder statesman, while Bertoldo’s Pasticceria on Banna Avenue has been selling pastries since 1952. Buy two. One is for the car.
Drink like a local
Griffith’s real trade is wine – lead by Calabria Family Wines which has been in the same family since 1945.
Beyond brilliant drops, it also offers guests the opportunity to enjoy self-guided museum tours, a sensory wall and hot food and platters from the bar menu.
At Bilbul, De Bortoli’s cellar door shows off the region’s Italian side, and the winery is behind Noble One, among the most decorated dessert wines in the world. Italian grape varieties are worth chasing too. Montepulciano is building a following here.
Fill the boot
Before heading home, detour to Catania Fruit Salad Farm in Hanwood, just south of town. The name is accurate. Future you, eating pasta on a miserable Tuesday, will be grateful.
Go before the lists catch up
Griffith is starting to get noticed. So, book dinner, wear something stretchy and go. It’s the spritz in a piazza experience that flooded your feed for a solid three months between June and August. Except now you can enjoy it with no passport, no jet lag and no $14 bottle of water.
