delicious100: Top 20 dishes in South Australia for 2019 chosen by The Advertiser
After sampling nearly 1000 plates to choose the restaurants for SA’s delicious100, our reviewers have picked their top 20 entrees, mains and desserts for 2019.
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Our expert food reviews have sampled dishes from across the state in selecting the top 100 restaurants for 2019.
Here, we reveal their favourite entrees, mains and desserts for the year.
SNACKS/STARTERS
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The deliciou100: SA’s best restaurant guide
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1. Nido | Whipped ricotta and ligurian honey with gnocco fritto
Like many of the great kitchen inventions, the biggest seller at cosy new Italian pasta specialist Nido was a bit of an accident. Husband-and-wife chef team Max Sharrad and Laura Cassai were playing around with a dish of goat curd and bottarga.
“When it came to tasting, we thought it was a bit over-the-top and we thought classic flavours would go better,” Max explains.
So they whipped ricotta with a little milk, drizzled it with Kangaroo Island ligurian honey and, the clincher, ground over some black pepper to strike a balance between sweet and savoury.
Make sure to order a side-serve of gnocco fritto, a pasta dough that is deep fried until golden and puffy. Tear off a piece (careful, it’s hot) and scoop up the creamy goodness. Heaven.
2. 2KW | Blue swimmer crab, crumpet, bottarga
They might not get the kudos of icons such as whiting or lobster but freshly cooked and picked blue swimmer crab is the equal of any seafood from our waters.
If you don’t believe it, try the starter from 2KW chef Trent Lymn that spreads a generous layer of meat from award-winning local fisher/processor Two Gulfs Crab on a house-made crumpet, then sprinkles it with shaved bottarga (cured fish roe), chives and dill.
It’s simple but the pure white, sweet chunks of crab meat don’t need much extra help.
3. Shobosho | Spiced pork and cabbage potsticker dumplings with crispy chilli
In a year of many good dumplings (we’re looking at you Sparkke), Shobosho came up trumps. Shaped like little sausages, these might not look quite as photogenic as more traditional shapes but wait till you take a bite. Modelled on a gyoza style, they are first steamed and then pan-fried until the bases become golden and begin to caramelise and stick. Inside, a filling of spiced pork and cabbage has the perfect balance of salt and sweet. Dunk in a black vinegar dressing and smear with chill and you won’t forget them soon.
4. Lot 100 | Sardines, charred tomato
The kitchen team at Lot 100 at Hay Valley live by the same sustainable, minimal impact ethos as the rest of the operation. So it makes sense to use sardines, the oily little fish that, while revered around the Mediterranean, has until recently ended up as tuna feed or fertiliser here. Shannon Fleming and Tom Bubner show how good it can be, grilling fillets until their skins have blistered and charred but the flesh remains supple and true to its distinct flavour. The sardines are laid on a sauce of smoky squished tomato. A fistful of herbs on top help freshen it all up.
5. Vintners Bar & Grill | Beef crudo, pickled celery, chilli, wood fungus
Situated in the heart of the Barossa, Vintners has been a favourite of the local wine fraternity for more than 20 years. Chef Peter Clarke, a winemaker himself, is always mindful of what is being poured into the glass but that doesn’t stop his menu being split fairly evenly between East and West. It would be easy to construct a meal with chilli and coriander in every dish, but equally feasible to leave them out. This inspired take on tartare has a foot in both camps, with a melba toast cylinder holding a mix of hand-cut beef, pickled celery and two types of wood fungus, black and white, all livened up with a chilli nam jim and drizzle of wasabi oil. Each mouthful tastes — and just as importantly feels — slightly different, with all those textures dancing merrily together.
MEAT
6. Gather @ Coriole | Natures chicken, braised beans, lardo, rainbow chard
Tom Tilbury wants everyone to eat their greens. The chef at Coriole in McLaren Vale packs his plates with vegies, leaves and herbs, turning them into sauces, salsas and oils as well as presenting them in their natural form. Take his roasted chicken that is laid on a small mound of beans that have been braised with little pieces of lardo and finished with a vivid green rainbow chard sauce. As well as making great flavour sense, it is nourishing for body and soul.
7. Slate | Spice fried quail
Pikes has built a stunning new extension to its Clare Valley winery, a tasting room and restaurant of stone and glass that seems to hover over the vineyard outside. Chef Max Stephenson has been given the keys to this shiny new supercar but wisely keeps ego in check and produces crowd-pleasing food that should keep both locals and visitors coming back. His fried five-spice quail is typical, both breast and leg pieces partially boned and surprisingly meaty, a generous allocation interspersed with pickled carrot and daikon ribbons, a few splotches of a perky “green gazpacho” translating easily into what is an otherwise Asian affair.
8. Sparkke at the Whitmore | Pork shoulder, charred eggplant, yoghurt
The game-changing city pub and brewery with a social conscience proclaims it is “Made by women for everyone”. Chef Emma McCaskill takes that message on board with a user-friendly menu including dumplings, lots of veg and meat dishes to share such as this terrific pork. A spice rubbed shoulder, left to bubble in a pork stock for 24 hours, falls apart quicker than our local footy teams, collapsing into a wonderful mess of labne and squidgy eggplant, while pickled shallots, pomegranate and herbs stop things getting out of hand.
9. Topiary | Pan fried corned beef, roasted and sour carrots, carrot top mayo
Topiary’s Kane Pollard doesn’t like to waste anything and constantly shows in his cooking how less desirable offcuts, be they meat or veg, can be turned into something special. This plate has it all. First there is the corned beef, a block of luxurious, fall-apart meat that, it is revealed later, is in fact tongue, poached in beef fat and then pan-fried to order. A bundle of different carrots, braised in yoghurt whey to add tang, are arranged on a green emulsion that is made from their tops. There’s also pods of three corner garlic, pickled like capers, and fragile wisps of charred greenery. Brilliant on all levels.
10. Mt Lofty Ranges Vineyard | Hay aged Forest Range duck, Lyonnaise
This cellar door restaurant with knockout views makes a big deal about its connection to all things local — and ingredients don’t come too much more local than these aylesbury ducks. Renowned producer Carey Schultz allows his flock to dabble around an apple orchard at Forest Range, feeding on what they find among the grass and trees. Mt Lofty Ranges chef Adam Bowden presents the bird in two ways. The breast has been aged on hay for two weeks to further intensify its natural gamy funk and help the fat render. Served on the daring side of rare, it is indecently good and will stir the inner beast. The leg, meanwhile, has been cooked confit-style, shredded and wrapped in brik pastry to form a posh spring roll. With “Lyonnaise” accompaniments — Larousse speak for onion in various forms — it is a triumph.
VEGETABLE
11. Magill Estate Restaurant | Celeriac, taro, apple
Celeriac, the ugly duckling of the vegie world, is the hero of a dish that has the sense of magic that you expect during a night at Magill Estate. The plate arrives at the table with its contents shrouded by a plume of liquid nitrogen vapour. When that dissipates, it reveals a crunchy-crackly bird’s nest of shredded taro in which chef Scott Huggins puts celeriac mousse and chargrilled celeriac, as well as an apple granita that is the source of the fumes.
12. Orso | Savoury custard, peas
Andre Ursini’s no-expense-spared conversion of an old bluestone manor into a restaurant and adjacent bar/deli is a game-changer for the eastern suburbs. The dining space of Orso has been packed since opening with customers falling for dishes such as this bowl of savoury custard crowned with peas, leaves and tendrils, drizzled in a green mint dressing, and finished with a grating of fresh horseradish. With the silken luxury of the base alongside the foliage’s freshness and crunch, it’s like a day spa for your insides.
SEAFOOD
13. The Lane Vineyard | Swordfish, blood orange, beetroot
The Lane’s kitchen is inspired by European flavours but likes to find a twist. This grilled swordfish steak is magnificent eating — sweet, dense and meaty, with a hint of char, enhanced by a chunky blood orange and herb salsa. Classic Mediterranean, you’d think, until the addition of a smear of bright magenta beetroot puree takes it somewhere else. It works with or without the final touch. Clever stuff.
14. Hardys Verandah Restaurant | King George whiting, kombu, squid
When the original owner of this Crafers property, Arthur Hardy, hosted guests on a holiday weekend, there’s a good chance that the state’s favourite fish would have been on the menu. No way, however, would it have been presented in this fashion, the fillets laid on a stunning butter sauce flavoured with kombu, the seaweed that is also used dried to make a salty “cracker”. Dainty rings of local squid and shiso leaves complete a memorable plate.
15. Maxwell Restaurant | Ocean trout, yuzu, nasturtium
A significant renovation to the restaurant space alongside the cellar door at Maxwell in McLaren Vale has been matched by chef Fabian Lehmann and pastry sidekick Jason Brown who are cooking up a Michelin-style storm. This exquisite-looking dish is typical of the elite, modern European approach.
The ocean trout, its iridescent orange flesh just set confit-style, is stunning against the vivid green of the split nasturtium sauce. And the combination tastes just as uplifting as it looks.
16. D’Arenberg cube | Roasted eel, foie gras, chocolate
Chef Brendan Wessels likes nothing more than to demolish a packet of biscuits lying in bed — much to the bemusement of wife and co-chef at the d’Arenberg Cube at McLaren Vale, Lindsay Durr.
That is one of the many inspirations behind this unlikely savoury “cookie” and the reason it is served on a pillow.
On the top and bottom are two dark chocolate and coffee biscuits. Between them, the filling recalls a combination Brendan saw in Japan as he takes chargrilled Tasmanian eel, wraps it in nori and then covers it all in foie gras.
It’s a weird but wonderful Oreo and perfect for those who might be a little squeamish about eel.
17. Soi 38 | Snapper wing jungle curry
Former tour guide Terry Intarakhamhaeng takes diners on a journey through the different parts of Thailand and discovers some very different culinary dialects during a meal at Soi 38. In the mountains of northeastern Issan, the weather is more temperate and coconuts do not grow. So this jungle curry sauce that comes with a fried snapper wing is neither sweet nor creamy, the dark liquid based on fish stock and a paste of fresh and dried chilli, lemongrass, wild ginger and fermented fish guts, the result peppery rather than hot, incredibly aromatic, the layers opening up one-after-another like magical doors in a scene from Harry Potter. The bones and cartilage that support the wing contain lobes of glossy white meat that peel away with little effort, while a bowl of house-made rice noodles dressed in vinegar and various pickles sit to one side.
DESSERT
18. Osteria Oggi | Tiramisu affogato
When making their own pasta or other staples, the team at Oggi stay true to the traditional ways of the Italian kitchen. At other times, however, they are happy to put a twist on the classics in the same way the dining space is an indoor version of a village piazza. This dish is an inspired fusion of three Italian desserts — a perfect cylinder with tiramisu base, then vanilla zabaglione almost-semifreddo capped with a crisp wafer dusted with chocolate, the whole sitting in a puddle of coffee flavoured crème anglaise.
19. The Currant Shed | Blackberry, corn, chipotle
Delve into your pantry and pull out a packet of corn chips and a jar of blackberry conserve. Load a few of the chips with jam and sprinkle over chilli. Tuck in a serviette to protect against splatter and crunch away.
That, in essence, is a very primitive version of Wayne Leeson’s dessert at The Currant Shed in McLaren Flat, which is close to the best we’ve had this year (and certainly the most unlikely).
The blackberries come in the form of ice cream, poached fruit and a sauce with a lingering note of chipotle, all topped by a sweetcorn and buttermilk espuma and fried chips made of crushed popcorn to scoop the whole mess up.
20. Italy | Panna cotta — milk, honeycomb, lemon
When L’Italy opened in O’Connell St in the middle of the year it made an impression for a few different reasons. The atmosphere of the place, with its authentic accents and crooner playlist, is hard to resist. So is the collection of Italian wines lined up along the wall.
But what stood out the most is this trembling joy of a panna cotta, so fragile it barely lifts off the plate, showing the folly of using too much extra gelatine for structural integrity.
Brittle sheets of dried milk skin add just enough contrast in texture, as well as a subtle caramel edge. Fresh honeycomb and lemon finish it off. Chef Joe Carey has unfortunately returned to Melbourne but the memory of his panna cotta lingers on.