Adelaide restaurant Extra Chicken Salt is closing for good – but a popular city lunch spot is taking its place

Adelaide’s retro chicken shop-inspired Extra Chicken Salt is closing for good – and a popular city lunch go-to is taking its place.

Adelaide restaurateur Peter DeMarco – who also owns Borsa, Pizza e Mozzarella Bar and Chicco Palms – at Extra Chicken Salt. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Retro chicken shop-inspired restaurant Extra Chicken Salt has closed its doors – and a popular city lunch venue its taking its place.

Adelaide restaurateur Peter De Marco, who is also behind longstanding dining establishments including Borsa and Chicco Palms in Brooklyn Park, said the venue – which opened on the corner of Currie and Peel Streets in late 2020 – couldn’t survive low city foot traffic post-Covid.

“We were only really getting foot traffic Friday and Saturday nights, and for the commitment we put into this place, it was too hard to survive,” he said.

Food at Extra Chicken Salt. Picture: Julian Cebo

The upstairs dining room at Extra Chicken Salt, which will remain unused for now. Picture: Julian Cebo

“It’s unfortunate, but the closures through Covid absolutely killed us. We were so far back in the red and trying to recover from that was virtually impossible. Luckily my other venues were established … we were able to come back.”

Extra Chicken Salt opened as an understated retro takeaway chicken shop, which led through to a “secret bar” and restaurant, focusing on French techniques.

Mr De Marco is subletting the rear bar area and opening a dine-in version of his successful Chicken & Pig takeaway – currently based on Pirie St – into the restaurant, from Monday.

“I’m really interested to see how it will go there next week, because it’s a strong brand,” he said. “We’ll be doing takeaway as well as dine-in, and may extend our lines if it works.”

Natalie Albany and Kosta Karakitsios at Chicken & Pig in Pirie St. Photo: Calum Robertson

Chicken & Pig specialises in roast chicken, pork and lamb rolls, and salads. The original Pirie St site will remain.

Extra Chicken Salt is the latest Peel St venue to close in recent years, joining Serbian restaurant Kaffana and Spanish bar restaurant La Rambla.

The Advertiser restaurant reviewer praised the venue in 2021, writing, “ECS has struck the right balance between deliberately daggy tribute show and a dining experience of substance”.