Acacia, where less would be more

A Henley cafe that is super-serious about its beverages has ventured into dining with an ambitious menu that at times tries too hard, writes Simon Wilkinson.

Acacia, Henley

The area around Henley Square, like most suburban hubs across town, isn’t exactly short on places to have a coffee.

None I can think of, however, goes about dispensing it with such attention to detail and eye-catching style as Acacia, a year-old cafe in the same complex as Melt on Seaview Rd.

A long, tile-fronted bar that runs most of the way down one side of the room is equipped as if they might be saving lives, or launching rockets, rather than making a cup of Joe.

Three gleaming chrome units protrude from the bench like flashy beer taps. All the messy machinery is hidden underneath and each station can be programmed for a different pour.

Acacia, unsurprisingly, is swamped on the late Saturday morning of my first visit as locals head in for their caffeine quota. Far less expected is the food they are about to serve up for lunch.

Acacia, Henley

Forget toasted sandwiches and banana bread. How about grilled octopus, fermented corn, chicken floss and pickled karkalla? Or braised lamb neck with carrots, pickled fennel and bee pollen?

All in an unlikely setting where the furniture – including teeny round tables not much bigger than a party pizza and metal tubing chairs that make your back ache just looking at them – look better suited to a short stay.

Acacia is the first foray into hospitality for Elisa Mercurio and partner Juan Londono who just happened to be living across the road when the space became available.

They opened just over a year ago but became more serious about the gastronomic side of things when they obtained a liquor licence and hired chef Duane Tilka (Hill of Grace, The Pot) in July.

More recently, they have expanded from lunch to dinner service, which is why we’ve rolled up on a Friday evening – to find that, other than an eager waiter, we have the place to ourselves (strange, given it was booked out the week before ).

The menu can be eaten top-to-bottom for $100, we’re told, before opting to make our own selection. As the earlier examples suggest, the cooking is full of ambition and keen to champion current fashions, be it native or Japanese ingredients, fermenting or grilled veg. Some dishes fare better than others. Most would benefit from scrubbing out an element or two.

Barramundi with potato noodles at Acacia

A mussel topped with garlic butter, crumbed and fried, chicken kiev style, is genius as a bite-sized snack. Excellent flaky pastry wrapped around pork mince that has been spiced with yuzu kosho (a Japanese chilli condiment) makes a superior sausage roll, particularly when wiped through a mango jam that could go happily on anything from toast to ice cream.

Elsewhere the red pen is needed.

Slippery “noodles” of squid tube coated in a rich miso butter find enough contrast in crescents of pickled celery and don’t need the little pink flowers that look innocent but are full of astringent flavour.

Chocolate Slice - banana ice cream, miso caramel, peanut praline

Carpaccio of tuna may well have been very pleasant before being rolled in lemon myrtle – a lot of lemon myrtle – and then swamped in ponzu. It’s a mess.

Beautifully cooked slices of hanger steak – rare, well-rested, tender – sit in a red-brown puddle of red-pepper sauce, along with a thorougly grilled section of broccoli. The fermented pear is obsolete.

Dessert is also complicated but an unqualified success. A long block of decadent chocolate slice is partnered by a thick miso caramel, roasted banana with a toffee top, discs of dehydrated banana and a superb banana ice cream. It takes a little trial-and-error to get the proportions right (not too much chocolate, please) but it rings all the right bells.

A coffee to finish, as you’d expect given the set up, is exemplary. And tea drinkers are treated equally well – a boutique range of leaves, water hot but not boiling, an elaborate steeping process. Hallelujah.

You can’t question the effort in all that Acacia does. It’s just that sometimes they are trying too hard.

ACACIA

3/269 Seaview Rd, Henley Beach, 8221 6502, acacia.place

OWNERS Elisa Mercurio, Juan Londono CHEF Duane Tilka

FOOD Contemporary

STARTERS $15-$20 MAIN $20-$27 DESSERT $10-$15 DRINKS Short, local wine list

OPEN Breakfast/Lunch Daily, Dinner Fri-Sat

SCORE: 13/20