Bar Riot | SA Weekend restaurant review

Wine from beer-style taps and Spanish-inspired food by a chef with top-level credentials – check out this colourful new CBD hangout.

Spanish snacks are only part of the story at the new home for a renegade wine company challenging the status quo. Dining space at Bar Riot, Adelaide.

Not so long ago, a group of maverick Australian winemakers, sick and tired of faulty corks wrecking their product, started using screwcaps. The traditionalists were mortified, until they saw the improvement.

Now it is bottles in the crosshairs, with questions raised about their environmental impact and suitability for responsible drinking.

Finding quality wine in packaging other than bottles, however, isn’t all that easy, a conundrum that has been on my mind recently. First, during a tasting of boutique casks with friends preparing for a camping trip where packing space is at a premium.

This was followed closely by a visit to a colourful CBD venue that, in addition to being a likeable neighbourhood hangout serving Spanish/South American food, is also a cellar door of sorts for a company that puts its wine into single-serve cans.

A mix of snacks at Bar Riot, Adelaide.

Bar Riot is a happy marriage between Tom O’Donnell’s Riot Wine Co and The Palmer Group, a rapidly expanding entity behind establishments including the Highway Hotel, Arkhe and 2KW. They have taken over the Gilbert St premises previously run as Madre, adding further to an appealing cluster of pubs, cafes and bars in the southwest of the city.

Much of the fit-out from the former pizzeria remains in place, with the pink tones of the decor and upholstery now looking a deliberate match to our carafe of rose. Beyond that, all those curves and archways make a vaudevillian backdrop for a couple of waiters happy to embrace the theatrical side of their roles.

At the back, the old wood oven has been pulled out, its place taken by a large concrete egg containing grenache where regulars can fill their flagons. The narrow open kitchen alongside comes complete with de rigueur charcoal grill that is given a good workout.

Chef Trent Lymn comes to Bar Riot courtesy of its links with The Palmer Group. He was previously running the show at 2KW but, for this project, is joined in the kitchen by his wife, Ceci, who is Argentinian. These different influences are brought together in a snack-happy menu you might imagine finding in a Spanish tapas bar opening in Buenos Aires.

Beef tongue skewer, pineapple, fermented jalapeño at Bar Riot, Adelaide.

Coffin Bay vongole, pancetta, manzanilla sherry at Bar Riot, Adelaide.

Pan Catalan is the epitome of making-something-out-of-nothing, a slice of toasted, garlic-rubbed bread smooshed in all the juice and goo that comes out of a ripe tomato. This version is one of the best I’ve eaten since a memorable night long ago in Majorca.

In a similar vein, the cheeks, jowl and other assorted bits of a pig’s head are shredded and pressed into a cube that is crumbed and fried golden. The croquette is finished with a big dob of salsa borracha, a dried chilli concoction that is Mexico’s answer to barbecue sauce.

Coffin Bay vongole are larger than their Goolwa cousins though, in this case, the meat inside some shells is a little shrivelled. The combination of fleshy pancetta pieces and a Manzanilla (dry sherry) broth that can be soaked up on grilled sourdough is nevertheless spectacular.

Berrima octopus in escabeche dressing at Bar Riot, Adelaide.

The dining space at Bar Riot, Adelaide.

Three folded sardine fillets impaled on a wooden skewer are loaded with bolshie fishy flavour that is matched to a chorizo sauce. A slice of top-shelf Iberian jamon is best savoured on its own.

Things do drop away a little from this point. A cast iron pan of small Berrima (not baby) octopus has a nice springy chewiness to get your teeth into but little else. And a skewer of sliced beef tongue has lost some of the char and sizzled crispness that can make this grilled offal so good, while an accompanying wedge of pineapple doesn’t really get along.

Food like this, you could easily argue, is designed to enjoy rather than analyse. Just like the wine that is dispensed from beer-style taps at the bar into glass or carafe. For those who are sceptical or flush with cash, the list also includes bottles, ranging up to a $1350 Chateauneuf-du-Pape. One wine, it’s safe to say, that will never be in a can.

For more reviews visit delicious.com.au/eatout