Coriole, McLaren Vale | SA Weekend restaurant review

This McLaren Vale venue was rated the best restaurant in the state before Covid hit. Simon Wilkinson finds out whether its new chef is maintaining that stellar standard.

Coriole restaurant in McLaren Vale. Picture: Matt Loxton

Every profession has its dream job, where the people, the place and the resources exist that give an individual the chance to shine. It might be a physicist shooting for the stars at NASA or a tech wizard who has searched up Google.

But if you were a chef in South Australia, I reckon the gig at Coriole would be pretty hard to beat.

This cellar door restaurant is set in a semi-enclosed courtyard with the loveliest of cottage gardens to one side, and a mesmerising view across McLaren Vale’s productive patchwork on the other.

The winery has vegetable patches and fruit trees on the surrounding property, including that ancient-looking fig just outside the window.

It also owns a nearby farm, with a gardener devoting much of her time to supplying the kitchen, as well as producing high-grade olives, oil and vinegar.

On top of that, a close family member happens to be one of the country’s finest cheese makers.

Still, for Coriole’s recently appointed head chef Patty Streckfuss, this dream job comes with one potential pitfall.

For the previous four years, under the direction of Tom Tilbury and his Gather brand, the venue has been at the pinnacle, including a No.1 ranking as the state’s best restaurant in the last delicious100 list.

Figs, honey labneh, white chocolate.

No pressure then for a newcomer whose commendable CV (long-term at Andre’s Cucina and shorter stints at Orana, Africola and Leonards Mill, among others) has not previously included much time in the spotlight.

Given this background, it’s no surprise that nothing much has been changed, at least in these early days.

The menu structure, pricing and presentation remain the same.

More importantly, the link with Coriole’s gardens and a carefully curated network of local suppliers feels as strong as ever.

If anything, you will discover even more leaves and blooms and edible bits that you are unlikely to have heard of, let alone eaten. African horned melon? Why not.

Tomato, sourdough, curd.

Streckfuss and her team are doing the hard yards, making their own sourdough and butter. A by-product of this process, gently tangy buttermilk, is puddled around the base of the season’s last figs in a dish we add to the fixed selection.

Halves of the fruit are topped with wafers of prosciutto and amaranth leaves.

A black glazed bowl provides the backdrop to layers of buffalo curd and a creamy emulsion of tomato, garlic and basil, finished with sourdough croutons and a medley of tomatoes, herbs and mini cucumbers, including one with a striped “watermelon” skin.

Cape Jervis calamari and ribbons of fennel should be the heroes of the seafood course but a sauce of paprika-rich nduja in which they have been briefly cooked proves to be a bit of a bully. Greenery, including fried saltbush, karkalla and other coastal herbs, helps to restore the peace.

Tomatoes, sourdough, buffalo curd.

Red meat comes in two stages, first a superb piece of Paroo kangaroo fillet, smoky from the grill, with shredded rainbow chard, onion soubise and a mellow cream of roasted garlic and tahini.

Thick slices of sirloin might be more mainstream but, with the added bonus of a thin rim of fat along one edge, might just shade the other meat.

They are accompanied by a vivid green parsley persillade and eggplant cream which, given what has come before, might be one puree too many.

The end of the meal takes us back to the beginning, with more figs, these lightly roasted and jammy, alongside a wedge of frangipane cake concealed under a thick doona of labneh.

Coriole’s restaurant is well-established, with a polished floor crew and mature attitude to wine service which embraces other benchmark varieties and regions.

While on one level the new chef must feel like a child in a lolly shop, she is also dealing with practical considerations, such as building a new support team.

Given time, no doubt, she will find this is the job she has dreamt of.