Big Harvest

Big Harvest Food Store

The Big Harvest Food Store offers meals to hungry locals, serves as a convenient base for catering gigs, and employs about half a dozen Big Harvesters

Take home meals

Tell them you made it yourself - we don't mind.
Take home meals are the delicious alternative for those on the go. Our soups, salads, dips and sauces are available refrigerated in larger boxes at our Food Store. Reheating instructions are included as appropriate.
Visit our store for more details.

Reviews

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That's Melbourne

Breakfasts Out
Claire Wiltshire
Read review online here
Simple and healthy breakfast with the catering specialists
Big Harvest has wholesome written all over it. From the inviting wooden crate table-and-chairs out the front, to the generous selection of wholemeal slices on display, this café has a very natural feel.
The breakfast menu is understated with not an egg in sight. But for a simple bit of sourdough toast or a hearty bowl of muesli, you can't go wrong. The basic ingredients are also top quality and classics like sardines on toast never tasted so good. You can mix-and-match your toast toppings, but suggestions include ham and cheese as well as avocado, tomato and hummus. Muesli is served with berry compote and tangy natural yogurt.
The chalkboard menu offers that café favourite, the muffin and coffee combo as a breakfast option, and it works. The lemon myrtle and berry is a scrumptious choice, with moist berries, lemony tang and a crispy top, finished with home-made goodness.
As you'd expect, there are plenty of healthy drinks on offer. Bottled juices are by Phoenix, and Emma and Tom's, but the real treat here is a very special tea. The Moroccan Mint brew is a sugary blend of black tea with fresh mint, and the secret ingredient? Orange blossom.
Inside, it's all very quaint, with decorative old milk jugs, ceramic pots and big jars of preserves on show. Upbeat pop music adds to an all-round good vibe that makes even your coffee seem guilt-free. However, Big Harvest is mainly about catering, consequently, the café side of things can feel a little incidental. There's a transitional vibe for those huddled around the single communal table inside, with delivery men popping in and out as the spicy aromas of healthy take-away lunches waft around.
Situated on the city side of busy Elgin Street, Big Harvest's outdoor seating can be a little frantic, with cars tearing their way to work. But after 9 o'clock, this part of town becomes magically hushed, and that old Carlton neighbourhood ambience comes creeping back. Sit back and enjoy the atmosphere with a simple nourishing breakfast, and be sure to take home some lentil soup for lunch.

Citysearch, Veda Wickens May 2007
Read review online here
Open since February 2002, Big Harvest is the brainchild of former corporate catering chef Angela Kellett who decided to open her own venue after the kitchen she ran with a close friend was sold. Today it caters for locals and visitors alike who are treated to Big Harvest's tempting fare weekdays from 7.30am. Get in early to nab a perch on one of the outdoor crates revelling in the sunshine, or knock elbows at the rustic communal tables.
Start your day with Morrocan-style baked beans, homemade Bircher muesli and a glass of freshly squeezed juice. At lunchtime munch on a chicken and avocado baguette, a slice of spinach pie with a side of Middle Eastern inspired salad, or a chicken tagine with couscous. This is healthy food that is not only good for you, but tastes sensational too. Finish with a cup of steaming Genovese coffee and one of many fresh slices on display.
If you're going healthy there's a good selection of salads including the beetroot, dill and walnut salad comprising freshly grated beetroot, mixed through with chopped dill and walnuts, roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds, complemented by an orange dressing. Thankfully takeaway is also offered, for this little eatery has a bigger following than dining room.

Cheap Eats Guide 2005
Cuisine: Quality Quick Bite
151 Elgin St. Carlton
Stars: 2 of 3
Every weekday these caterers open their tiny shopfront and dish out wonderfully robust food. There's plenty of scope for takeaway, but why not bump elbows with regulars at the rustic commmunal table or perch on a wooden crate in the sun? Enjoy a hefty baguette (maybe chicken and avocado with a lemony mayo) or a golden slice of spinach pie while you sip Moroccan mint tea. This journey away from the Italian fare that dominates Carlton continues with specials such as fragrant lamb tagine, and chicken-and-rice cabbage rolls. But a touch of Italy is always nearby: fine Genovese coffee to finish.

The Age 'Epicure' October 13, 2005
Hilary McNevin
The kitchen almost spills on to the front counter at this tiny cafe where everything is made on the premises. A spinach and feta pie is a typically generous dish ($5). An enormous wedge of crispy filo is stuffed with salty feta and earthy spinach, rounded out with some onion and a touch of garlic.
The coffee is also consistently good. There is a huge, inviting window at the front and enough room for one not-so-big communal table inside. A few box stools are scattered on the footpath so it's good to arrive early if you want a seat.

Cheap Eats Guide 2004
Cuisine: Quality Café
151 Elgin St. Carlton
Stars: 2 of 3
Big Harvest is one of those blink-and-you-miss-it joints everybody knows about before you do. These caterers still supply office functions with delectables, but now welcome the public to taste their confidently homely wares. Pop in weekdays for a Bircher muesli breakfast, or Moroccan baked beans on pide. If you can't get a seat at the communal table, take something to go. There's a range of baguettes (such as tuna, dill and salad), thick soups, spicy salads, stuffed cabbage leaves and Greek lamb casserole boosted with mashed potato. Pop an almond caramel slice into your shopping bag while you're at it.

The Age 'Epicure' November 25th, 2003
Matt Preston in "Unexplored Territory"
There's a big kitchen table inside, where the walls are decorated with a blackboard, Fowlers jars of preserves and old tin blancmange moulds. The space is dominated by a huge caterer's kitchen dripping with dangling pans burnt black by time. We sit outside on the pavement in the sun at sturdy, wooden slatted box seating and tables that look as if they're modelled on orange crates.
We eat eggplant topped with loads of chicken mince and a sweet-salty paste of miso and a flat field mushroom filled with ricotta-feta-onion-olive-herby mixture that is perhaps the best stuffed mushroom I have ever tried. There is a scarlet-smeared chicken drumette that tastes of China; a less-successful - unless you like loads of pastry crust - mushroom crostini, and salads. The best is the lentil and feta; or the carrots, cashew, currants and coriander ones.
There are usually also felafels, a soup and something with a Moorish flavour, such as lamb kofte, a tagine or kibbeh. These little balls of chicken mince and burghul wheat are dense and moist and come with a minty herbed yoghurt.
The arancini, which contained nicely gooey melted cheese when you pull the ried rice ball apart, comes splashed with a sort of sauce romesco that is more red capsicum puree than nuts.
The muesli slice also makes me reconsider my belief that such things usually taste of the sweepings of the sawmill.
The coffees could have been stronger and the fresh juices surface only at breakfast but otherwise I can see why those people from the nearby Nova Cinema are regulars here.

Download our catering menu

Contact us

Big Harvest
151 Elgin St.
Carlton VIC 3053
AUSTRALIA

T | 03 9348 0066
F | 03 9348 0306
info@bigharvest.com.au