Eating Adelaide

WORDs: Bethany Plint

Say what you will about Australia’s sleepiest city, but when it comes to food and drink, Adelaide seriously delivers.

IT’S NO WONDER that some of the country’s most renowned chefs and foodies have taken up residence in South Australia. Beloved Maggie Beer welcomes visitors to her Barossa property to wander the olive groves and vineyards and sample delectable pantry staples. Former Chef of the Year Duncan Welgemoed plates up bold and complex creations at Africola, an ode to his South African heritage. MasterChef ’s Poh Ling Yeow even runs a stall at Adelaide Farmers’ Market every Sunday.

Here restaurateurs, chefs, winemakers and producers have a licence to saunter outside the confines of tradition. The result? A remarkably diverse food scene where unusual pairings, unique ingredients and unexpected twists are standard practice.

Lucia’s at Adelaide Central Market

Lucia’s Pizza & Spaghetti Bar is something of an Italian institution in Adelaide. And I have it on good authority that the sauce is the real deal, confirmed by an Italian cashier in Rundle Mall who raved about the place on my first morning in the city. It was the second mention of Lucia’s since my partner and I landed, so we thought it criminal to skip a visit. One of the longest-running outfits at Adelaide Central Market, the venue was opened by Lucia Rosella in 1957 after she relocated from Benevento in Southern Italy. Today her two daughters run the show, plating up no-nonsense Italian staples with fresh, seasonal ingredients. They also make the best panini in the city (another hot tip from a local foodie).

The delicatessen is well worth a peruse, offering Lucia’s famous sauces – only made over summer when Australian tomatoes are at their ripest – as well as a range of local cheeses and cured meats.

Adelaide Farmers’ Market

On Sunday mornings, while the CBD looks like it’s been all-but abandoned, in the city’s south-western outskirts Adelaide Showground is heaving. The popular weekly farmers’ market is a bustling affair where pre-eminent stalls send lines snaking around corners. Here you’ll find Adelaide’s foodies clinging to their KeepCups, while canvas bags slung over shoulders reveal collard greens and carrot tops spilling over the sides.

Follow the enchanting smell of freshly baked goods into the market hall and grab a loaf of sourdough from one of the many bakers, or fill your cooler bag with artisan cheeses from local dairy producers.

For a treat (as long as you are willing to wait in line for it), check out JamFace by Poh for a slice of cake, biscuit or pie that looks almost too good to eat… almost! Head to Lato Cakery to taste the Slavic honey cake – a five-layered masterpiece alternating South Australian honey with caramel cream. By contrast, Let Them Eat is one stall you won’t need to feel guilty about splashing out at: chef and owner Tanya sources all her ingredients locally to create vegetarian delights that are both healthy and eco-conscious.

Whistle & Flute

It’s easy to walk straight past south Adelaide ‘café and liquor bar’ Whistle & Flute. Hidden behind a wall of ferns and an unassuming metal door, this local favourite is a popular brunch spot with a delicious and very literal menu.

If you’re looking for ‘Things that are eggy and also bready,’ your choices range from blue swimmer crab scrambled eggs to a halloumi burger oozing with a googy egg and sriracha mayo. ‘Things that are sweeter than others’ include toasted waffles topped with whipped Nutella, and Bircher muesli with peanut butter and apple slices.

If your brunch turns into a long lunch, you might want to sample the salted caramel Martini, or perhaps a Bloody Mary, if you’re recovering from a day at the wineries. Beer drinkers are in for a tough decision: the fridges are always jam-packed with craft beers from local brewers. Keep an eye out for Mismatch on tap – more on that later.

The Summertown Aristologist

A scenic 30-minute drive out of the city and into the Adelaide Hills, The Summertown Aristologist serves up authenticity on a plate. It’s a true community affair: the wine racks are stocked with natural wines from a vineyard down the road (and sold at the cellar door just next door) and the dishes are crafted from local, organic ingredients grown in the kitchen garden.

The menu changes weekly and is driven by what’s in season around South Australia at the time. During our visit in week #347, we feasted on steaming bowls of delicately seasoned lentils, slow roasted eggplant, grilled capsicum bursting on bite and freshly baked sourdough with a generous scraping of cultured butter. The meal was full of flavour, and went down a treat with a bottle of Gris Rose from nearby Château Commeci Commeça.

If you’re not sure what to order, that’s a good thing! Go for the ‘don’t think about it’ option and have the team bring out delicious samples of the entire menu one after the next. You’ll be full to the brim by the time you’re done, but not to the point of sluggishness, as the ingredients are all fresh and wholesome.

Lot.100

Lot.100 is part of a small but growing trend towards multi-business venues across the state. It’s a collective of producers joining forces to provide a one-stop food and beverage destination where you could easily while away an entire day. It comprises a craft brewery, small batch winery, gin distillery, cider company and fresh juice producer.

The ‘lot’ is an 84-hectare property in the luscious Adelaide Hills. What was once a cattle pasture has been transformed into a destination dining precinct that blends industrial and agricultural in a forwardthinking, sustainable manner. The roof houses 1,700 square metres of solar panels, and the on-site wastewater treatment plant purifies every drop to be reused across the property – to water crops, in the distilling process and so on.

The Lot.100 restaurant welcomes foodies seeking sustainable, local produce prepared differently. Only the best local ingredients are used to create a type of food that blends modern Australian cuisine with rustic Italian cooking. The everchanging menu is complemented by innovative offerings from Lot.100’s onsite beverage brands: Adelaide Hills Distillery, Mismatch Brewing Co, Ashton Valley Fresh, Hills Cider Co, and Vinteloper Wines. Order a tasting flight; the gin option won’t disappoint.

Chalk Hill Wines & Never Never Distilling Co

Over in McLaren Vale, Chalk Hill is another award-winning collective that unites three pioneering food, wine and gin producers. The namesake, Chalk Hill Wines, is a family-owned estate driven by six generations of grape growing heritage. Established by the Harvey family back in 1964, Chalk Hill opened its cellar door in 2020, not long after its Alpha Crucis Old Vine Grenache was named best wine in McLaren Vale.

Carrying plenty of accolades of its own, Never Never Distilling Co makes up another third of the collective. Led by a trio of boundarypushing creatives, the brand has won some of the most noteworthy awards in the business, including 2020’s Best Regular Gin and Double Gold at the World Spirit Awards in San Francisco.

Of course, when sampling some of South Australia’s best drops, it’s difficult to limit yourself to just one or two glasses. For this reason alone it’s a good idea to get something in your stomach (as if you needed an excuse?). Chalk Hill’s food offering comes in the form of sophisticated Italian-style street food. Cucina di Strada dishes up Roman-style pinzas (not pizzas), warm snacks, grazing platters and delicious Mediterraneaninspired desserts.

Pizzateca

If your craving for fine Italian food is real, consider worth saving yourself for lunch at Pizzateca, a family-run restaurant tucked away off Chalk Hill Road. Tables and chairs spill out of the refurbished farmhouse onto the lawn, warmed by freestanding heaters on cool days and shaded by a giant oak tree in the warmer months.

Don’t expect to order a Hawaiian pizza at this joint. Unwaveringly true to their Abruzzo roots, the team serve true Neapolitan-style pizza on dough made by hand, fired in a wood oven made by Stefano Ferrara and shipped over from Naples, Italy. If pizza isn’t your thing, firstly, what’s wrong with you? Secondly, never fear, you won’t be disappointed by the arrosticini – lamb skewers cooked over charcoal with a touch of salt. Simple, authentic and delectable.

If you can’t decide what to order, let the kitchen look after you. You’ll be treated to a selection of antipasto, schiacciata (traditional Tuscan flatbread similar to focaccia but definitely not the same!) and a choice of chef’s-favourite pizzas. The drinks menu carries a number of familiar names, too. Mismatch Brewing, Hills Apple Cider and Alpha Box & Dice all make appearances.

Alpha Box & Dice

If you don’t mind swirling your wine outside the box, this McLaren Vale-based producer is an essential stop on your itinerary. The eccentric winemaker behind Alpha Box & Dice has undertaken a rather ambitious challenge and is just shy of the finish line. The label has embarked on an Alphabet of Wine project, creating a series or standalone wine for each letter of the alphabet. Only five remain at the time of writing.

I didn’t even need to try the letter ‘G’ – Golden Mullet Fury – before penciling it down on my order form: I was sold on the name alone! The limited-edition magnum is Alpha Box & Dice’s signature ‘orange’ wine, where red winemaking principles are applied to white grapes. The result is a bold drop with strong stone fruit flavours, best served ice cold on a piping hot day.

The cellar door is open Friday to Monday from 10am to 5pm. Guests at the heritage-listed barn venue in the heart of McLaren Vale can indulge in a grazing platter to complement their tasting either inside, surrounded by an eclectic art collection, or outside under shady trees at the various picnic tables.

Where to stay in Adelaide

If you’ve read this far, you’re clearly a truly devoted foodie. In which case there’s no other place to stay in Adelaide than in the spiritual heart of the city’s food scene. A lazy stroll from vibrant Adelaide Central Market and right on the cusp of Chinatown, Hotel Indigo Adelaide Markets is a characterful food and beverage destination in its own right.

Brightly coloured tables and chairs spill out onto the sidewalk of a quiet laneway, where Market & Meander gives guests their first taste of the Hotel Indigo experience. The hotel’s main restaurant plates up extravagant, tasty dishes with plenty of fun twists; a nest of pink fairy floss topped my French toast one morning. The menu reflects the plentiful multicultural influences of the neighbourhood and the bar is stocked with South Australian wines, local beers, signature Indigo cocktails and more than 25 different gins on offer.

Take the elevator all the way to the top and you’ll discover a not- so-secret rooftop bar that’s been regularly booked out since opening in March 2021. Merrymaker embodies the hotel’s raw and refined ethos, dishing up sumptuous seafood and charcuterie from local suppliers, complemented by an eye-boggling wine list, innovative cocktails, and enough tap and bottled beers to quench the most serious of thirsts.

Aside from the consumable offerings, the decor and furnishings are perhaps the most memorable features of the hotel. Housed in a former textiles factory, the blend of heritage-listed features and avantgarde architecture provide an accommodation experience that truly reflects the personality and style of a city in perpetual metamorphosis.

Fly to Adelaide from Melbourne or via Melbourne from Sydney with Rex, as well as various regional ports around South Australia.