SA’s top-ranked restaurants for 2021
Looking to support SA’s struggling hospitality industry? Food critic Simon Wilkinson’s top 15 restaurants for 2021 are a great place to start.
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Looking to support South Australia’s struggling hospitality industry?
These restaurants are a great place to start.
Food writer Simon Wilkinson visited dozens of restaurants last year, and these were his favourites.
Scroll down to see the best restaurants reviewed in 2021, ranked from 15 to 1.
15. La Locanda
94 Frome St, city | 8225 6125 | facebook.com/LaLocanda.Adl/
Owner/Chefs: Giuseppe Marra and Laura Middei
Food: Italian
Price: Small $6-$28, main $26-$36, dessert $13-$16
Drinks: A short list of mostly local or imported Italian wines at reasonable prices.
Open: Lunch Tue-Fri, Dinner Tue-Sat
I have a borderline obsession with panna cotta. If it’s on the menu, as it so often is, I’m going to order it, even though the chances of it being made properly are disappointingly low.
Serving it in a bowl or other form of mould is an automatic fail. It needs to stand up on its own. So is making it with so much gelatine that it bounces back from the prod of a spoon like the rubber man in Fantastic Four.
The panna cotta at La Locanda, a surprising new Italian in the CBD, is the complete opposite. Give the plate a little jiggle, and it doesn’t just get a bad case of the shakes, it begins to quiver uncontrollably. One harsh word or sideways glance and it could completely fall apart.
The fragility of this dessert, the exquisite judgment of its surface tension, is the whole point. As well as being sublime when it slips across the tongue, it is a true test of the skill and bravado of its creator. Otherwise you are just making jelly.
La Locanda gets this, and most other things, absolutely right.
14. Masa
Bowden Brewing, Plant 3, 12 Fourth St, Bowden | bowdenbrewing.com
Owners: Big Easy Group
Chef: Harry Bourne
Food: Mexican
Price: Tacos $10-$16, Larger plates $35
Open: Lunch Fri-Sun, Dinner Tue-Sun
Here’s something you won’t see at your run-of-the-mill restaurant or bar. We’re midway through a batch of next-level tacos at Mexican eatery Masa when a bloke walks in lugging one of those glass flagons known as a growler. He has a chat, orders a refill of his favourite ale, and takes it home.
It’s only six months since Masa opened as the food match to the craft beers of Bowden Brewing and it seems both are very much part of life in the surrounding community.
Executive chef Harry Bourne has put together the food for Masa, fashioning a menu that, on one level, is filled with the type of simple Mexican-leaning snacks you might think of when chugging a pint.
Dig deeper, however, and you will find the kind of labour-intensive kitchen commitment and skill-set normally associated with the world of fine dining.
Take the $13 pork taco. Not only is Masa making tortillas, they are grinding their own corn from a supply of dried Australian kernels. These are cooked, soaked overnight, processed and, finally, rolled and pressed by hand. The result is a flatbread of substance and soul. And the pork isn’t the usual pulled shoulder. Whole pigs’ heads are boiled in a huge pot for eight hours before the cheek, jowl, tongue and other bits are stripped away and moistened with the reduced stock. The finished taco has the meat, a roasted apple salsa and puffed pieces of crackling. Boom.
Less divisive perhaps is a taco filled with beer-battered Port Lincoln flathead, fermented cabbage and a green salsa of spring onion, jalapeno, lime and herbs. Another veg-based option has chargrilled broccolini, smoked almonds, a chunky almond mole, pickled onions and smoked chipotle.
The standout, however, is the crisp tostada (a fried tortilla) loaded up with whipped avocado, chunks of gently poached king prawn meat, habanero hot sauce and a sprinkle of fermented chilli powder.
13. Blue Rose
28/330 Seaview Rd Rd, Henley Beach | 8117 7816 | bluerosehenley.com
Owners: Tuoi and Annie Tran
Chef: Tuoi Tran
Food: Asian
Price: Small $12-$25, main $28-$40, dessert $15
Drinks: The list is short but filled with wines, mostly from small SA producers, that fit this style of dining perfectly.
Open: Lunch, dinner, Tue-Sun
Lazy Susan! What a disparaging name for an invention that should be the centrepiece of a diner-led revolution. The spinning tray at the centre of the table makes passing around food a breeze.
Why, then, do the cool-kid eateries, where sharing is next-to-obligatory, continue to ignore this ingenious device with the unfortunate reputation?
Blue Rose at Henley Beach is an exception to the rule. This spanking new two-level restaurant from the people behind CBD hotspot Gondola Gondola is very much on-trend with its Sans-Arc design and smart branding. But downstairs, right beside the front window, is a tall, round table with a lazy Susan in matching dark timber.
Blue Rose stands out in other ways as well. Rather than duplicate the Vietnamese/Thai/street food themes of Gondola, the Trans decided to incorporate Chinese influences at Blue Rose, a reflection of Annie’s heritage.
The result is a collection of dishes that are a refreshing change from the Southeast Asian standards.
12. Down the Rabbit Hole
233 Binney Rd, McLaren Vale | 0448 764 956 | downtherabbitholewines.com.au
Chef: Cameron Clarke
Food: Contemporary
Price: Two courses $70; three courses $85
Open: Lunch Mon-Tue, Thu-Fri (platters on weekends)
Imagine a Wonderland with multiple Alices, Harry Potter’s double-decker bus and an assortment of fairytale cottages.
A place where every item of boho clothing, every cushion and even the contented chooks look as if they have been painstakingly styled as part of an Instagram ploy.
Yes, it is easy to be cynical about the image-conscious motivations of Down the Rabbit Hole, a creek-side cellar door and eatery to the south of McLaren Vale.
But, if you are anything like me, it won’t be long before the genuine hospitality and quality of the whole package wins you over.
In contrast to most of its neighbours, DTRH restricts restaurant-style service to weekdays, when customers can be given more personal attention.
Weekend crowds (and it can feel like one big party, apparently) are offered simpler grazing boards and a handful of specials.
Head chef Cameron Clarke (ex-Salopian Inn) and his team know how to make a plate look photogenic but, once again, the style is matched by substance.
11. Seed Clare Valley
268 Main North Rd, Clare | 8842 2323 | seedclarevalley.com
Owners: Guy Parkinson, Candice Leighton, Sam Maitland
Chefs: Guy Parkinson
Food: Bistro/European
Price: Snacks $3-$7, main $24-$56, dessert $15-16
Drinks: Excellent list with a strong regional representation (aged rieslings particularly) and other benchmark wines from elsewhere in Australia and beyond.
Open: Lunch Wed-Sat, Dinner Wed-Sat
It’s the tale of two dinners. Pumpkin gnocchi, roasted cauli and a stonking pork chop with a glass of nebbiolo for us. And for the mum, dad and teenagers who roll into Seed midway through the evening? Pizzas, chips, Coke and water.
The comparison isn’t intended to pass judgment either way. Rather it illustrates both the possibilities and the dilemmas for an eatery in a regional town that hopes to cater for all-comers, be they locals or visitors, gastro-snobs or just plain hungry.
Between its bistro, rooftop bar and deli, the third version of Seed, now settled into an astonishing re-imagined bank building in the main street of Clare, tries very hard to please everybody.
10. The Scenic Hotel
Old Norton Summit Rd, Norton Summit | 7320 1610 | thescenichotel.com.au
Owners: Alistair Wells, Matilda Bryson, Enoch Yates, Jay Marinis
Chef: Dylan Marshall
Food: Contemporary pub
Price: Small $10-$21, Main $22-$34, Dessert: $12
Open: Lunch Wed-Sun, Dinner Wed-Sun
‘Booking essential, bums on seats, no packet gravy, no pokies.’ In a world full of marketing over-reach and misappropriated catchphrases, the mission statement for the Scenic Hotel is refreshingly free of bulldust.
It tells you a bit about this landmark venue, positioned to make the most of the view from Norton Summit, and more particularly the attitude of the bunch of mates who have recently taken it over.
This is no big-budget, bells-and-whistles country pub makeover. The heritage and rough-at-the-edges spirit of this historic, two-storey bluestone building are still intact. Even the grumbliest of locals won’t find much to complain about.
The renovations have all been DIY, relying on hard work and a measure of creativity. Daggy wallpaper and carpets have been stripped and replaced with polished boards and fresh paint in twin shades of green. The kitchen and other facilities have been given a scrub. A pool table has been brought upstairs, where it is more accessible. A few personal treasures have been put on display. If you were to say it had the warm, unpolished feel of an early share house, I don’t think anyone would be offended.
What the four owners lack in financial backing, they compensate for with a wealth of front-of-house and management experience, their combined CVs covering influential restaurants including Golden Boy, Osteria Oggi and the Summertown Aristologist, a short drive to the south.
9. New Local Eatery
120 Port Rd, Hindmarsh | 8340 4915 | newlocaleatery.com.au
Owner/chef: Daniel Blencowe
Food: Contemporary
Price: Main courses $19-$28
Open: Lunch Tue-Fri; Dinner Wed-Sat
One of the minor pitfalls of this gig (and not that I’m complaining) is that the self-imposed code of prioritising restaurants that are recently opened makes it difficult to revisit an old favourite. New Local Eatery, however, makes the rule worth breaking.
Hidden away in an unremarkable shop front next to the Entertainment Centre on Port Rd, this suburban gem has never developed the kind of profile it so thoroughly deserves.
That needs to change. This meal only reconfirmed my belief that NLE offers value unsurpassed anywhere in town. For the price of a pub meal or Uber Eats feast, owner/chef Daniel Blencowe turns out dishes that are intelligent and incredibly generous, reflecting his travels across the globe but avoiding the cliches.
Whether it is Italian gnocchi, Scandi beetroot or Japanese-style ocean trout, nothing on his menu costs more than $28. And that’s for the larger dinner plates. At lunch, a Sri Lankan curry, made with fillets of coorong mullet, plenty of cardamom and curry leaves, is a crazy $16. It makes those expensive sandwiches look silly.
And, while NLE might not be in the running for too many design awards, the dining space is warm and welcoming, with tables spread around a central bar, eye-catching art on the walls and soft light from the lamps hanging overhead.
8. Bush DeVine Restaurant
Pauletts Winery, 752 Jolly Way, Polish Hill River | 8843 4328 | paulettwines.com.au
Owner: Pauletts
Chef: Thomas Erkelenz
Food: Contemporary
Set menus: One course, bread, wine, $40; Three plates, $44; Five plates, $62 Dessert $14
Drinks: Pauletts wines by bottle and glass, including aged releases. Matched selection available.
Open: lunch daily
Hoisin sauce is China’s ketchup (aka tomato sauce). It’s full of sugar. Kids love it. And while the dark gloop is best known for being rolled in a small pancake with roasted duck, it ends up everywhere
And like our dead horse, much of the commercial stuff found on supermarket shelves is simple and sickly sweet. But, as Thomas “Erky” Erkelenz shows at Pauletts’ Bush DeVine restaurant in the Clare Valley, it needn’t be this way.
Erky’s hoisin starts with black beans, soy and a deeply caramelised palm sugar rather than the quick-fix refined stuff. To this he adds three types of native myrtle – aniseed, cinnamon and a pinch of lemon.
Those underlying notes of licorice and five-spice make it a perfect playmate for a DIY assembly of tea-smoked pork slices wrapped in chewy, charred pancakes with cucumber pickles and a weapons-grade chilli relish. It’s a porcine Peking duck that arrives via the backstreets of Bangkok and the Australian bush.
Bringing together such powerful global players could have turned into the culinary equivalent of a diplomatic meltdown but this impressive 26-year-old chef, calling on equal measures of gut-feeling and research, makes it work brilliantly.
7. Watervale Hotel
37 Main North Road, Watervale | 8843 0229 | watervalehotel.com.au
Owners: Warrick Duthy, Nicola Palmer
Chef: Nicola Palmer
Food: Contemporary
Price: Small $15-$22, main $22-$80 (to share), dessert: $5-$15
Drinks: A comprehensive overview of the wines of Clare Valley dominate a list with a smattering from other regions filling any gaps.
Open: Lunch and dinner daily
Is there anything sadder in the food world than the standard pub salad, the pathetic pile of limp lettuce and pallid tomato put on the plate in full knowledge that it is bound to return to the kitchen untouched, to scrape into a bin?
The salad at the Watervale Hotel, on the other hand, is a joy to behold. A ceramic bowl is filled with leaves and stems of lettuces, cabbages and other greens; slices of beetroot, cucumber and squash; apple, radish and a mix of petals and blooms.
Everything has been plucked or snipped or pulled from the ground that morning. It’s like frolicking through a magical cottage garden – which isn’t far from the truth.
Because as splendid as the transformation of this historic Clare Valley hotel is, it only tells part of the story.
6. Jolleys Boathouse
1 Jolley’s Lane, city | 8223 2891 | jolleysboathouse.com
Owner: Barry Matthews
Chef: Jack Ingram
Food: Contemporary
Prices: Small $12-$24, Main $34-68 (share)
As rivers go, the Torrens isn’t quite in the league of the Thames, the Mississippi or even the Yarra. It’s not a maritime thoroughfare (unless you count Popeye) or a hub of activity, at least not yet. It just quietly meanders by, minding its own business.
And, like most waterways running through the middle of a metropolis, pulling a fish from those murky depths is about as appealing as a bad dose of the flu.
Eating fish by the river, however, is another matter. Especially if that fillet is Murray cod, anointed with a fermented chilli and sea urchin butter, at the “new” Jolleys Boathouse.
Jolleys, of course, is not new at all. It has lured diners to the base of the City Bridge for more than three decades. However, after presiding over the establishment for more than half that time as head chef, Englishman Tony Carroll moved on last year, prompting changes that range from replacing the original roof to hiring a new manager.
New chef Jack Ingram, also a Brit, is accustomed to his food having to share some of the attention. He and partner Vanessa Cu still own Sunset Food and Wine on Kangaroo Island. Complications with COVID-19, and staff and tourism, have put that business on hold, meaning the pair have found their way to the city for now.
Their timing has been spot on for Jolleys. Ingram, who has developed his craft in kitchens including Southern Ocean Lodge and Melbourne’s Vue de Monde, has the right balance of creativity and common sense for a restaurant that knows its clientele aren’t there to be shocked or bamboozled. A few pleasant surprises are all that is needed.
Like the guilty pleasure of sweet buttermilk Parker House rolls that come with a dish of whipped butter and crumbled chicken skin to slap on as thick as possible while no one is watching.
Other plates, by comparison, are a model of restraint, particularly in seafood options that are a high point across the menu.
5. Aurora Restaurant
Light, 63 Light Square, city | 7089 9600 | auroraadl.com.au
Owner: Nick and Sophie Dunstone / Light Social Enterprises
Chef: Brendan Wessels
Food: Contemporary
Price: Small $12-$29, main $28-$42, dessert $14.50-$16.50
Drinks: Substantial list of Australian producers with shared values. Reasonable mark ups.
Open: Lunch Thu-Fri, Sun Dinner Wed-Sat
COVID-induced changes in mindset don’t come much bigger than that of Brendan Wessels. Little more than a year ago, he was pushing meringue mix into a 3D printer and serving sherbet to suck through a fake hundred-dollar bill at the attention-seeking d’Arenberg Cube.
Now he is head chef and chief mentor of Aurora, a restaurant based on an altruistic vision of being nothing less than a circuit-breaker for the industry, a place where ego, prestige and unrealistic expectation are set aside and that the work/life balance can be fair and sustainable. He couldn’t be happier and, my goodness, doesn’t it show.
Wessels is originally from South Africa and one section of his menu is devoted to meats and fish from the “braii” or barbecue. Other plates show a mix of influences – South African, Thai, French and particularly Japanese – all elevated above what is normal by small but significant touches of technical virtuosity. Nothing too flashy – just bloody delicious.
4. Sol Restaurant
Eos by SkyCity, Entry via Station Rd, city | 7077 3960 | skycityadelaide.com.au
Owner: SkyCity
Chef: Kane Pollard
Food: Contemporary
Price: Five courses, $110; seven courses $145
Open: Lunch and dinner daily
In the year since the attached review was published, chef Kane Pollard has made significant changes to his approach at Sol.
This can partly be viewed as a chef gaining the confidence to back his own instincts in an environment that could scarcely be more different than Topiary, the garden centre eatery where he first made his name. On the flip side, it would seem he is now being given commendable support in following this path.
The results are spectacular, with Pollard’s innate connection to the season and his surroundings as strong as ever.
Take a spoonful from the spring bowl of asparagus, peas and beans finely diced in a freekeh porridge and it is like delving into a bag of mixed lollies from the vegie patch.
The “Be the Bee” dessert looks like a just-opened sunflower, with petals of dried pumpkin dusted in calendula (marigold) powder. At the centre are shiny beads of mead gel, finger lime and a pumpkin custard, all layered into a treacle snap shell. It’s a truly beautiful plate that tastes just as good.
Read Simon Wilkinson’s earlier review here
3. Fugazzi Bar & Dining Room
27 Leigh St, Adelaide | 7089 0350 | fugazzi.com.au
Owners: Simon Kardachi, Max and Laura Sharrad, and partners
Chef: Max Sharrad
Food: Italian
Price: Small $5-$24, main $23-$199 (feeds four), dessert $15-$16
Drinks: A Martini or Manhattan will set the scene before exploring a wine list in which the Italian locals and imports are only part of the fun.
Open: Lunch Tue-Sun, Dinner Tue-Sun
Cancel all meetings. Turn Out of Office on and the mobile off. Pop the cork on something special. The long lunch is back.
It’s Friday mid-afternoon, well past the time for city workers to return to their posts, and the buoyant groups filling the tables around us don’t look like moving anytime soon. There is no checking of watches, no taking urgent calls. Dessert and another bottle? Why not.
This realigning of priorities might be one of the silver linings to the disruption of the past year. Then again, it could just be that, in Fugazzi, the CBD has a restaurant with the pizzazz and sense of occasion to encourage wanton misbehaviour.
Chef Max Sharrad, who along with wife Laura is a partner in the business, take this American/Italian theme as a starting point and brings it up to contemporary speed. That means a menu where snacks outnumber larger courses, a wood grill and vegetables figure prominently, and wakame oil doesn’t feel entirely out of place.
2. Eleven
11 Waymouth St, city (enter via Post Office Pl) | 7008 0222 | elevenadl.com.au
Owners: Callum Hann, Themis Chryssidis
Chef: Dan Murphy
Food: Modern French
Price: Small: $6-$35, main: $34-$80, dessert: $14-$16
Drinks: Anyone questioning the value of a sommelier needs to sample Geoffrey Hunt’s exceptional selection, particularly by glass. One of the best around.
Open: Lunch Wed-Fri, Sun. Dinner Wed-Sat
The conversation at the next table goes something like this.
Diner 1: “Where’s Callum? I thought he would be here.”
Diner 2: “Well, I’m sure Callum is very busy. He would have been here constantly at the start, helping to develop the menu, finding the right people, making sure everything ran how he wanted. Now he can step back a little.”
Which is right, to a point. The restaurant part of eleven, the bold city venture from local food personality/entrepreneur Callum Hann (who has surely outgrown the MasterChef tag) and his business partner Themis Chryssidis, can function effectively without them. The cooking is memorable. The drinks list superb.
1. Restaurant Botanic
Adelaide Botanic Garden, off Plane Tree Drive, Adelaide | 8223 3526 | restaurantbotanic.com.au
Owner: Blanco Horner
Chef: Justin James
Food: Contemporary
Price: Set menus – The Short Path, $150; The Long Trail, $195. Vegetarian, vegan and other menus available.
Drinks: Top-shelf wine selection with most bottles at $80-plus. Good options by glass or half-bottle.
Open: Lunch Fri-Sun, Dinner: Thurs-Sat
The starting point is a bowl of lemon aspen jelly with finely diced kohlrabi and halves of twice-shelled green peas that look like minuscule lily pads on the surface of a pond.
The finish is a toffee-topped semi-frozen cream and matching syrup, flavoured with the spiky fallen branches of a bunya bunya tree. Think of old wooden boxes filled with toasted marshmallows and nuts.
Both are stunning but the remarkable part about lunch at the re-imagined Restaurant Botanic is that every one of the nine courses between are their equal. The standard never drops. The thrills don’t let up. As a collection, it is the culinary equivalent (and apologies to youngsters here) of listening to a Beatles album.
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