Super Mercato, a Mediterranean-inspired superfood grocer, has opened inside the Cosmo Shopping Centre on Knox Street, bringing together fresh produce, prepared meals, deli fare, boutique pantry goods and plenty of treats under one roof.
It’s about making good choices easier to find. “You shouldn’t have to be a nutritionist to shop well,” says co-founder James Simonetta. “Our job is to do the work for you, to find the better version, whether that’s a better ingredient list, a better fat, a local maker or simply a better taste.”
And if the team can’t explain why something belongs in the store, it doesn’t make the cut. “If we can’t explain in one sentence why a product belongs on our shelf, it doesn’t belong on our shelf,” Simonetta says.
A Mediterranean pantry with room for treats
The Mediterranean influence comes through in the focus on fresh produce, simple ingredients, generous flavours and plenty of variety. However, a focus on better ingredients doesn’t mean cutting out the fun stuff.
Sugar, chocolate, flour and butter all have a place here, provided they’re made with real ingredients and without what the team describes as cheap industrial shortcuts.
Across the store, shelf markers make the curation visible. Shoppers can spot tags including Supermercato Pick, High Protein, High Fibre, Better Fats, Low Sugar, Simple Ingredients, Local Maker, Small Batch and Organic.
There are also digital displays that allow customers to tap their phone to a product and pull up its calorie count, nutrition panel and the story behind the brand.
A grocery shop that doubles as a lunch stop
The Market Fresh section focuses on specialty and Australian-grown fruit and vegetables, while the pantry leans towards recognisable ingredients, better fats and products without palm oil.
Then there’s the Eat-Now deli, where the grocery shop can easily turn into lunch. The team makes fresh panini, salads, juices, smoothies and yoghurt daily, with artisan panini starting at 588 calories. The smoothies are almost too pretty to drink.
There’s more to Super Mercato than health food. You can drop in for lunch, pick up dinner, restock the pantry or leave with something sweet.
Home delivery is also available across the full range, while members can access exclusive pricing, queue-skip priority, enhanced delivery and preferred delivery windows from $14 a month.
70 years of fresh produce, now in Double Bay
Super Mercato may be new, but the family behind it has been in Sydney’s food business for decades. The Simonetta family’s produce business began in the mid-1950s, when Antonio “Tony” Simonetta—known to the family as Nonno Tony—opened the Moorebank Fruit Market in Sydney’s south-west.
Fresh produce became part of everyday family life, along with a lasting focus on growers, quality and service. That legacy continued with the next generation. Over more than four decades, Michael Simonetta helped transform Perfection Fresh, bringing products including Broccolini®, Calypso® mangoes and Qukes® baby cucumbers into Australian grocery aisles.
Now, that produce expertise has been brought together with a new focus on modern wellness. Anthony and James Simonetta, alongside their friend Simon Hamilton, are also co-founders of XtraClubs, an Australian wellness brand. T
Together with Michael’s fresh-produce experience, they’ve created Super Mercato as the latest evolution of the family food business.
Super Mercato is now open at Shop G9, 2/22 Knox Street, Double Bay, inside the Cosmo Shopping Centre.
