Alessandro Motta from Casa Motta moved to Brisbane from Rome when he was 12. Back then cheese was a standard part of his life, but in Brisbane he found the availability of the cheese that he loved limited. At 14 Alessandro started experimenting with making mozzarella and after two years he managed to get a ball – not one that was edible, but it was a ball so that was progress. It took another five years until he produced a worthy product and at the ripe age of 24, Alessandro has been making his beloved mozzarella for ten years now.

During his youth, on school holidays Alessandro would travel back to Italy where he would explore the cheese-making industry in his spare time. His defining moment was upon visiting the Valle Chiara Monastary where the nuns live on the produce from the land and among their produce was buffalo mozzarella. What he learned from the nuns helped him hone his techniques and produce his own wonderful buffalo mozzarella.

Now his business Casa Motta makes hand-stretched buffalo mozzarella from 100% buffalo milk from Maleny as well as fior di latte and burrata. The Casa Motta live cultures are sourced direct from Italy to give the original Italian flavours and characters to his cheese.

In order to satisfy all his customers cheese needs, Alessandro also sources DOP cheese products (meaning Denominazione di Origine Protetta or Protected Designation of Origin) from various Italian regions. Alessandro supplies Italian provolone, a cows-milk cheese from Southern Italy and pecorino, a sheeps milk hard cheese, both of which are DOP guaranteed to be made by local Italian farmers and artisans using traditional methods.

Casa Motta makes the cheese fresh the day before the Queen Street Markets and the Powerhouse Markets with the intention of selling out. Selling out is Alessandro’s sure way to show that his cheese is fresh each market day. Alessandro’s advice on picking a fresh buffalo mozzarella is that its should be as white as pearl with visible layers on the inside when cut. If you want to get yourself a fresh Casa Motta mozzarella ball, you’ll need to get in early.