WITH salumi hanging from the roof and a cabinet packed with smallgoods, it's part Italian butcher. The selection of Dutch, Australian and French pates and cheeses make it part French cheese shop or fromagerie, while the Hunter Valley olives, olive oil, daily baked bread, fresh eggs and homegrown citrus firmly reflect its Hunter Valley home. Put it all together and you have Pork Ewe Deli, Newcastle's newest gourmet food providore.
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At 144 Maitland Road, Mayfield, Pork Ewe Deli is the brainchild of former winemaker Shannon Davis, the bright, smiling face behind the counter of the already bustling store. Along with her husband Craig and a concerted family effort, Davis opened Pork Ewe in the past fortnight and it's already a welcoming space characterised by rustic colours, handmade recycled wood pieces and even a wall of rustic corrugated iron pilfered from the shed on the couple's Hunter Valley property.
Davis told GT the response to Pork Ewe Deli had been overwhelmingly positive (one customer even exclaims "You're a godsend!" during GT's visit), with customers already coming back for more and new faces appearing at the shop as word spreads across town of the beautiful selection of meats, cheeses and more on offer.
Standing behind the packed cabinet with the aroma of the smallgoods and cheeses in the air, Davis's enthusiasm for her products is infectious. She and husband Craig "jumped in the deep end" earlier this year, starting the long process of finding suppliers for the range of smallgoods, cheese, pates, terrines and more.
The desire to open the charcuterie was driven by a pure love of the smallgoods and cheese Pork Ewe Deli now stocks, a love that was born when the couple lived in the UK for a few years and reinforced by a recent European stint.
"I love all this stuff [she gestures to the packed cabinet of cheese and meats] and my husband Craig loves all this food and there is nowhere here in Newcastle that stocks it," Davis told GT.
"We had been thinking about opening the shop for such a long time and earlier this year we just decided to take the plunge."
A big part of Davis's passion is about changing the Australian attitude to charcuterie goods, leaving behind meat pies and Vegemite sandwiches and instead embracing smallgoods and cheese as part of the everyday diet, rather than treating it as special occasion food.
It's an attitude refined during a recent six-week stint in the famous French winemaking region of Burgundy where Davis lived with a local family, devouring cheese platters, fresh baguettes, salumi and more on a daily basis.
"When you are eating food like this every day in Europe for six weeks, it's hard to just walk away from that," she said.
"This sort of food shouldn't be a rarity in our diet, it's a speciality you have on an occasion but in Europe it's an everyday thing."
Though Davis isn't new to enjoying the products stocked at Pork Ewe, she's taking it a step further by sourcing and selling them. In doing so, she's immersed herself in each product, knowing where it comes from, the nuances of its taste and how best to serve it. That's where the developed winemaker's palate comes in handy.
"It's great to be able to use what I learnt winemaking; I'm translating my sensory knowledge of wine to cheese and food . . . Tasting wine is just like tasting cheese, you look at the consistency, the flavour, the length. You get that tingle of the tastebuds from really good cheese," she said.
Pork Ewe Deli has just a handful of suppliers, including Sydney's Quattro Stelle, an award-winning family-run salumi or smallgoods manufacturer, a Sydney cheese provider which has direct connections with cheesemakers across the globe, a Kurri Kurri bakery for fresh baguettes and a Melbourne-based French food company, from which terrines, rillettes, pates and more are flown up each week. Eggs are from Davis's "girls" at home, as is the citrus in baskets on the counter. Herbs and vegies are next on the home-grown list.
"You know where it comes from, who made it," Davis said.
"All the products are handmade, they haven't come out of a factory."
Each product also has its own information-packed label. For the cheeses that includes notes on taste, how it was made (pasteurised or unpasteurised), the country of origin and the milk used to make it, be it cow, buffalo, sheep or goat.
"It is about educating people about the products - if you don't know what something is, you aren't going to buy it," Davis said.
There's plenty to choose from, whether your taste is for soft cheeses such as the French Soumaintrain, a cheese with a distinct orange-coloured aromatic and sticky rind and a rich taste with sweet, salty and creamy milk notes; the Hunter Valley's own cheese from Pokolbin's Binnorie Dairy; or the famous Italian gorgonzola blue cheese.
The selection of hard cheeses includes the British Keens Cheddar, French Beaufort, the Italian Monte Veronese (matured for three years, dry crumbly texture and flavour like a cross between cheddar and parmesan) and from the same country, the truffle pecorino.
For goats' cheese lovers there is the Brunet, a rich and creamy cheese with a smooth and dense, and even a little fudgy, texture. There is also the Dutch Chevre Affine, a goat gouda matured for six months in a specialist ageing cave to give a rich and creamy taste with lemon zest notes and a subtle butterscotch finish.
Pork Ewe also stocks sheep-milk cheese including a Tuscan sheeps' milk percorino and the Brebirousse, which has a washed rind and bold taste with a buttery finish. There is also buffalo milk cheese, the Quadrello, perfect for cheese or antipasto platters or paired with a glass of pinot grigio or pinot noir.
The array of meats is similarly staggering, with plenty to choose from, be it sliced to order or whole such as the French-style saucisson. There is the lonza (salted, cured and dried pork loin with herbs and spices), sobrassa (spreadable raw, cured sausage of ground pork, paprika, salt and spices) and the more traditional Italian calabrese or Spanish cantimpalo, to name just a few.
Meats and cheese aside, Pork Ewe also stocks goods to complete any lunch or dinner spread including terrines, rillettes, pates, olives, cornichons, confit duck (ready for the pan), olive oil on tap and preserves. Head into the shop for the full experience. Davis is also planning to offer platters to order.
Pork Ewe Deli is at 144 Maitland Road, Mayfield. It is open Monday to Friday 9.30am to 5.30pm, Saturday 9.30am to 2pm. Visit facebook.com/pork.ewe or call 0434988336.
