Udaberri menu goes next level
A pioneering city bar has taken its cooking up a notch and now has the setting to enjoy it properly, writes Simon Wilkinson.
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One person’s floor is another’s ceiling. In apartment blocks and cheap hotels, the reality of living in close proximity can mean sleepless nights and nasty altercations. But for Udaberri, the ground-breaking small venue that remains one of the city’s best, the two-level ambience exchange works as seamlessly as one of the 20 or so different gin and tonics they pour downstairs.
That’s where you will find the bar, a space that is as narrow and dark as a mineshaft but never feels gloomy. The beams overhead look like they’ve been there since Colonel Light was a lad, rather than a mere seven years.
Take the stairs to the mezzanine and those beams become joists that, beyond the end of the floorboards, frame vignettes of the action underneath.
Up here, what had been an extra zone for sipping and snacking now caters for a longer, more comfortable stay. While a few stool-and-bench perches remain, they have been joined by roomy padded booths custom-made for a small group wanting to have a natter over a more substantial meal.
These changes acknowledge what has happened in the kitchen, where the sibling team of Perryn Heyes and Alix Gannon are producing sophisticated Mediterranean flavours, particularly from northern Spain.
You might be happy picking over a few slices of jamon and patatas bravas sitting at a bar but dishes such as mussels in a sublime puddle of wine and buttermilk (a byproduct of making their own butter) deserve to be presented with the same kind of care that has gone into them.
Especially when those juices are sponged up by a slice of some of the best rye sourdough you will find around town, courtesy of co-owner Rob Dineen’s new-found passion for baking.
And you won’t want to rush bottles such as a syrah from Morocco, or a rare, 13-year-old oddball from rockstar Maynard James Keenan’s “Merkin Vineyards” in Arizona – the two gems picked for us by the other co-owner, the affable Ben Walsh.
The Udaberri menu still finds a place for more traditional pintxos, the Basque version of tapas – though unfortunately our health/licensing regulations won’t allow the snacks to be displayed as they are there.
Canned seafoods, cured meats and bocadillos (sandwiches such as portobello mushroom, fermented zucchini and romesco) ensure no one will be drinking on an empty stomach. But the offering has now grown in size and complexity.
Kick off with a toasted slice of that bread topped with folds of serrano ham, shaved celeriac, aioli and a dusting of manchego cheese, the veg layer quietly shifting the balance of a combination that could have been overblown.
A scoop of porcini “pate” is as smooth as ice cream and offers the same sort of heady pleasures as something made with offal. It comes with pickled veg and wafers.
The grill is given a work-out well before the meat arrives. Chunky branches of broccoli are heavily blackened and laid on a rich pistachio cream. Charred asparagus comes with a more predictable romesco that isn’t shy on the sherry vinegar.
Octopus tentacle has been put to the flame as well, though judging by the dull flabbiness of the meat, it has been cooked in another way first. A coarse, herby chimichurri sauce can only do so much.
The mussels (and the bread and butter) are the things I’m dwelling on days later. A dozen or so plump morsels, still tucked up in their shells, are scattered across a round platter. Shredded fennel and leek provide variations on a theme of sweet braised veg and the great liquor brings it all together.
Slices of crackle-rimmed roasted pork belly are splayed over a pool of mojo sauce that is the iridescent green of radiator coolant and has just enough kick to cut through the richness of flesh and fat. Lamb cutlet follows the same principle, though this time it is a bright red-orange concoction of fermented capsicum and chilli that provides the foil. Nothing revolutionary; just bloody good eating.
The single dessert of baked cheesecake seems a bit of an afterthought, especially when it is listed after a trio of more enticing cheese plates.
Not that it matters. The siren call of light-hearted banter and clinking glassware is hard to resist. And rather than wandering the laneways of Adelaide in search of the perfect spot for that inevitable final drink, we know it is only a short descent away.
UDABERRI
11-13 Leigh St, city,
8410 5733, udaberri.com.au
OWNERS Rob Dineen, Ben Walsh
CHEFS Perryn Heyes and Alix Gannon
FOOD Spanish/Mediterranean
SMALL $3-$16.50 LARGER $16.50-$19.50 DESSERT $7.50
DRINKS Terrific wine list from easygoing drops at good prices to older vintages. And they turn out a mean G&T.
OPEN LUNCH Fri-Sat DINNER Daily