Salamanca Market, Hobart
As far as street markets go, this one is big and wonderful – 300+ stalls every Saturday from 8.30am to 3pm. We love markets and this was a must-do for us when planning our trip to Hobart, Tasmania last December.
We went to Salamanca Place many times during our 6-night stay. It’s a vibrant precinct, with boutique shops, pubs and eateries to check out, including A Common Ground for Bruny Island Cheese Co cheeses, Rare Food pork products,and other Tasmanian artisanal products (think preserves, chocolates, barrel-aged vinegar, sustainably raised salmon, windmill-ground flour and more) and the Salamanca Arts Centre, a hub for creative arts, including live performance, film and visual arts and crafts. We ate breakfast at The Quarry Salamanca and the Machine Laundry Cafe in adjacent Salamanca Square (blog post to come).
The rows of Georgian sandstone buildings are quite beautiful and I enjoyed photographing them. Here are the ‘Before Market’ shots of Salamanca Place, with Mount Wellington in the distance. Hobart showed us some stunning skies.
There are lots of places to eat all along Salamanca Place and in Salamanca Square, but on a Saturday morning, I’d grab a bite at the market.
I was especially looking forward to trying one of Smith’s famous scallop pies, but sadly, their pie cart wasn’t at the market that particular Saturday. Still, there was plenty of food to choose from and I had a great time. Jac and I shared all kinds of market goodies: from Gypsy Rolls, a Jolly Jumbuck (AU$10) – spit-roasted marinated lamb, lettuce, carrot and apple bushpepper relish all wrapped in mountain bread; from Silver Hill Bratwurst, currywurst (AU$6), with a fat juicy pork sausage hot off the grill, sauerkraut and lashings of curry ketchup in a pillowy rye bun; from Top Nosh, a plate of tempura mushrooms (AU$7) cooked to order; and icy cold bottles of Gillespie’s ginger beer with old-fashioned stripey paper straws.
We sampled and then bought apple chocolate from Federation Chocolate, handmade in Taranna, Tasmania – we discovered later to our satisfaction it’s $2 cheaper per block at Salamanca Market compared to Hobart Airport. Next, a slab of rocky road with raspberry jelly from Venus Confectionery. We then split forces to continue our shopping. When we met up again, Jac had bought two small watercolour paintings from PJ Paintings which we’ve since had framed. I’d got myself a coffee ice cream cone (AU$4) at Kasperle Haus (the jam doughnuts looked amazing but I couldn’t fit one in), and then bought Tasmanian devil soft toys that roar when you squeeze them, for my nieces and nephew.
The market gets very busy from about 10am so I’d advise getting there early. If you enjoy markets, it’ll be a pleasure and too easy to get lost in this one for a few hours. The City of Hobart provides a map of the market (look below the main content to ‘Downloads’).
The market began with just 12 stalls in 1972 to over 300 stalls that now attract up to 25,000 people (winter) and 40,000 (summer) every Saturday. If you’re planning a trip to Hobart and love markets, make sure you include a Saturday in your trip so you can visit Salamanca Market.
We don’t get such an abundance of fresh berries in Western Australia – very rare for us to find fresh blackberries and raspberries for sale, for example.
There were several souvenir stalls at the market. We checked them all out before I finally chose the one that had the roaring Tassie devils which I got at a discount for buying three at once. I had a laugh at the two-headed Tassie devils for sale but decided that might be a tricky one to explain to the kids…
There are multiple ice cream vendors at the market.
Gypsy Rolls, where we grabbed our first bite of the day. There’s meat turning on a rotisserie as well as bacon, eggs and tomatoes frying on the hotplate – it looked and smelled fantastic.
Jolly Jumbuck (AU$10) – spit-roasted marinated lamb with lettuce, carrot and apple bushpepper relish wrapped in mountain bread – delicious.
It was a sausagefest at Silver Hill Bratwurst.
Currywurst with a juicy pork sausage, sauerkraut and curry ketchup in a rye bun.
Jac got in line at Top Nosh to get us tempura mushrooms while I got us a couple of icy cold bottles of Gillespie’s ginger beer next door. We had to wait for the mushrooms to be cooked to order, but they were worth it.
The stall where we bought the tempura mushrooms also sells oliebollen Top Nosh also sells oliebollen.
Venus Confectionery, where we bought deluxe rocky road with raspberry jelly
Federation Chocolate comes in different flavours, including coffee almond, hazelnut, honeycomb, Liquorice Lane, roasted cashew and our favourite, apple. 
We saw people walking around the market contentedly eating cherries out of paper cones.
Tastings at the Bruny Island Cheese Co stall – I wrote about them recently at my post A food lovers’ day out on Bruny Island.
Kasperle Haus, where there was ice cream, jam donuts and Jasper coffee.
My coffee ice cream in a cone (AU$4) from Kasperle Haus. 
One of those shots you can’t plan!
At Salamanca Market’s information kiosk, you can get a map and buy bags to carry your shopping.The day we went to the market, Tasmania’s first Samba band Chicada put on a spectacular performance to open The Taste of Tasmania Festival, which was held nearby at on Hobart’s waterfront on Princes Wharf No.1. The event will be on again late December 2014 to early January 2015. I’ll cover our day at The Taste of Tasmania in an upcoming blog post.
Chicada, Tasmania’s first Samba band. - Salamanca Place (when the market is on, trust me – you can’t miss it!)
- Saturdays 8.30am to 3pm, rain or shine – market is only cancelled if extreme weather conditions will affect the safety of stallholders and marketgoers.
- On Saturdays, Salamanca Place is closed to vehicles from 5.30am to 6pm, and so parking near the market is limited. But there are various options for getting to the market.
- Stalls may vary week to week.
About this series
In December 2013, my partner Jac and I went on holiday – 3 nights in Melbourne, then 3 nights in Launceston (Jac, to stay with a friend) and King Island (me, for a photographic safari with our friends Craig and Caroline), and finally, Hobart for 6 nights. This trip was not sponsored in any way.
The full list of posts is below:
- Short stories: Mount Wellington
- Christmas lunch at the Salamanca Inn
- The Quarry Salamanca
- MONA, Hobart
- A food lovers’ day out on Bruny Island
- Salamanca Market – this post
- Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race
- Cascade Brewery tour
- The Taste of Tasmania
- Two bakeries and a half-laundromat – three cafes in Hobart, Tasmania