Adelaide vegan restaurant Allegra Dining Room to reopen in January

Adelaide’s first and only vegan fine-dining restaurant, Allegra Dining Room, will be back in business at the end of January following a near 18-month closure.

Adelaide’s first and only vegan fine dining restaurant, Allegra Dining Room, will reopen in January following a near 18-month closure.

Allegra, in Gilles St, Adelaide, shot to the delicious.100 list of SA’s best restaurants in 2019, mere months after opening its doors. Owners Federico and Melissa Pisanelli – known for their traditional Neapolitan pizza diner, Etica, which is located on the ground floor beneath Allegra – closed the plant-based restaurant in September 2021 to focus on welcoming their first child.

Mrs Pisanelli said while many in the public assumed they closed the 28-seat venue because of Covid-19, which was wreaking havoc on Adelaide’s hospitality industry, Allegra had been “going from strength to strength”.

Celeriac, kale, macadamia at Allegra Dining Room, 2019.

Federico and Melissa Pisanelli at Etica in 2017. Picture: Morgan Sette

“We were doing double sittings; the restaurant was going so well, but because of that, we wanted to maintain the quality and integrity of the experience,” she said.
“Because it’s so small and intimate, to find someone to run it in my place – it would have changed the experience.

“It’s a lovely meal in a lovely setting that happens to be plant-based, but apart from the food on the plate it’s the experience itself that’s quite unique. It’s that balance of being relaxed, but also that classic fine dining experience and service.”

Mrs Pisanelli said since advising regulars of their January 29 reopening, dinner sittings were already getting booked solid.

Adelaide chef Miles Davies, most recently of Penny Hospitality’s Two Pot Screamer, will take the reins in the kitchen.

Allegra Dining Room is reopening.

“The intimate environment at Allegra allows me to bring my unique perspective showcasing my varied background of different cuisines and techniques,” he said.

“My cooking style is simple yet thoughtful. Big flavours, lots of texture, with balanced and clean deliciousness always at the forefront.”

Upon reviewing the restaurant in 2019, The Advertiser’s Simon Wilkinson said Allegra “elevates plant-based foods to a level of sophistication rarely seen here”.

Mrs Pisanelli said there was no other restaurant like it in Adelaide.

“It’s almost trendy to say restaurants are a celebration of vegetables, but we really are celebrating what’s in nature,” she said. “We’re employing innovative cooking techniques and relying only on the plants. It’s a greater challenge, but a greater reward, rather than something that is still relying on animal fats for flavour.”

Allegra Dining Room will be open for dinner Thursday-Sunday; bookings at allegradiningroom.com