At this Fairfield grocer, pickles are a way of life. A sprawling self-service pickle station, running nearly the length of the shop, is centrestage. It’s piled high with sour, sweet and crunchy serves of pickled cauliflower, cucumbers, Jerusalem artichokes, turnips and more. Seasonal additions, like green beans, often make the line-up, too. For just $10 to $15 per kilogram, customers scoop their favourites by the bucketload, taking home tubs of vibrant, tangy vegetables swimming in pickling liquid. So, King of Pickles and Spices is an apt moniker.

When Broadsheet visits on a rainy Saturday morning, the store is humming. Shelves brim with jars, boxes and tubs of tasty stuff, while the air is thick with the aroma of mixed spices. Arabic music plays softly in the background, making it feel more like a lively Middle Eastern marketplace than a suburban stop.

The owner of the store is Thia Michael, a proud Chaldean (an Assyrian diaspora group) from Iraq, who’s always had a knack for business. “He tells me stories that when he was seven years old, he would make homemade soups and try to sell them, like a little lemonade stand,” his daughter Athena tells Broadsheet.

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Thia’s entrepreneurial streak continued into adulthood when he moved to Greece, where he ran a small pickle and spice shop for nearly two decades, making everything by hand using family recipes. After migrating to Australia in 2007, he continued making and selling pickles from his garage, while working multiple jobs to support his family. But the pickle business took off.

In 2016, the family opened the first store in Fairfield, then three years ago, upgraded to a larger space to keep up with demand. Now, there’s four weekly trips to Sydney Markets in Flemington to restock on seasonal veggies. Each and every pickle is made on-site using a signature spice mix – that’s a closely guarded family recipe. “Our pickling process is much shorter than most people think,” Athena says. “It only takes a couple of days. We also give customers the pickling liquid, so it continues to pickle in their fridge.”

Alongside the bright preserves, briny marinated olives imported from Greece and Turkey stand out – ready to be purchased by the bucketload. Sweet treats like Turkish delight, baklava and boxes of halva are stacked high, alongside Persian lavashak – a preservative-free fruit “roll-up” drizzled with house-made pomegranate sauce. “Every two weeks, we get big shipping containers from Turkey, Dubai and Iraq. We import specialty treats, cheeses, nuts and seeds, so they’re all authentic.”

Don’t sleep on the fridge section either. It’s where you’ll find the buffalo gemar, a southern Iraqi delicacy. A “very heavy” full-cream buffalo milk is boiled down, and then turned into cream. It’s a decadent addition to warm bread with honey or jam.

Beyond retail, King of Pickles and Spices supplies wholesale spices and custom blends to businesses across Oz. And for home cooks, the signature pickling spice mix – the same one used in Thia’s recipes – can be yours to take home, too.

For the family, the store is about more than just food – it’s about community and culture. “My dad has always tried to embrace our heritage and share it with others,” Athena says. As customers leave with technicolour buckets of pickles and olives, and bag-loads of seeds and spices, it’s clear that he’s succeeded.

King of Pickles and Spices
114 Ware Street, Fairfield

Hours
Mon to Sat 8am–5.30pm
Sun 8am–3pm

@kingofpicklesandspices