Escape Adelaide for destination diner, Pearl
A new family-run restaurant right by the beach at Aldinga captures the relaxed spirit of a summer holiday, writes Simon Wilkinson.
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Like many things in life, summer holidays have become more comfortable, more complicated and a lot less fun. Drive along the esplanade from Port Willunga to Aldinga all but a handful of shacks have been replaced by gleaming towers of concrete and glass. The front yards full of three-cornered jacks and benches splattered in fish detritus are gone.
At the end of this stretch, where the road meets a concrete ramp, Pearl draws a line in the sand. Conceived, built and now run by its young owners, Jules Rydon and Bec Seidel, with plenty of help from both families, this new diner embodies all that is good about life by the beach, as well as a few of the frustrations.
It is a shack in looks and disposition, celebrating the simple and the stress-free. Pearl is plonked on the edge of a large carpark, next to a shelter, with a public dunny block across the other side (be warned – these are the only facilities available).
Corrugated iron, weatherboard, louvres – all the key shack-building materials – are used to clad a structure based on heavy beams that look as if they could be the masts and booms of a schooner washed up on these shores.
The design is brilliant – the pitched roof popping open at the top like a shiny clam, a vast expanse of picture window in the dining room, verandas on three sides offering at least some hope of shelter, whatever the prevailing conditions.
A mesmerising outlook starts with the lazy activity on the beach below, before blurring gradually to the distant impressionistic haze of cliffs and sky.
While it is all undeniably dreamy, Pearl does require a willingness to go with the flow. Like an old outboard motor, things take time to kick into gear. It’s a minute or two of standing idly before anyone twigs that we have walked in and, after seating, another seven or eight to be served.
The short, handwritten menu is even shorter today, with two of the five more substantial plates unavailable, and while missing the “Ray from the Bay” is disappointing but understandable given the vagaries of fishing, rubbing out the “Charcoal Chook” because a truck hasn’t arrived is harder to fathom.
What we do order, however, shows a chef at one with his surrounds. Jules, like Bec, is a local who has returned after years interstate and overseas, working in well-regarded kitchens including Sydney’s Porteno.
With a family connection to the fishing industry, he clearly knows his way around sourcing and preparation of seafood, but is also adept at making the most ordinary ingredients shine.
Zucchini, for instance. Chunky pieces of the veg have sat on the grill just long enough to soak up some smoke and soften before being tossed with mint leaves, smoked almonds, pomegranate, chilli and a mellow lemon dressing. It’s a lunch I could eat every day of the week.
Little padron peppers, the ones known for their Russian roulette random heat, are fried until shrivelled and tender, then sprinkled with just enough salt flakes to make them sing.
Their seafood counterpart are Clarence River school prawns, from northern NSW, speckled with dried saltbush and nori. Munched head and all, as advised, they are like a wonderful seafood chip, crisp in parts but fleshy at the belly, the whole thing packed with crustacean flavour. The only question, for some, will be whether Pearl should be sticking to its own sea patch.
Garfish is from SA waters. Two sleek torpedoes are laid side-by-side, skins striped by the grill and dusted in the Middle Eastern mix of dried herbs and sesame known as zataar. Lifting each fillet free from the fine rib bones takes some finesse but, with a drizzle of lemon juice, it is wonderful eating. Don’t bother with carrot and daikon in a particularly sharp pickle.
The sole dessert is a block of the Greek galaktoboureko, notable for the restrained sweetness of its semolina custard that sits beneath a filo top drenched in syrup.
Pearl has been five years in planning but only opened at the end of January. Expect the menu to expand, the systems to improve, but even then it might not be for everyone – those fixated on steak for a start.
For the rest of us, I can’t think of a restaurant that feels more connected to the state’s coastline. It’s the beach shack we’ve been waiting for, a place where, finally, we can go to eat seafood by the seashore.
PEARL
Lower Esplanade, Aldinga Beach
7477 7177; pearlaldingabeach.com.au
OWNERS Jules Rydon and Bec Seidel
CHEF Jules Rydon
FOOD Contemporary seafood
SMALL $6-$16 MAIN $24-$34
DESSERT $12
DRINKS A handful of local wines, all suited to drinking by the sea.
OPEN BREAKFAST and LUNCH Wed-Sun, DINNER Wed-Sat
SCORE 15/20