Press Food & Wine | SA Weekend restaurant review

With a new chef offering a signature snack as his secret weapon, the transformation of this city restaurant is complete. Here’s why reviewer Simon Wilkinson rates it as one of the best this year.

The ground floor dining room and bar at Press Food and Wine, Adelaide.

Remember the time when profiteroles were a thing and stacking them into a towering croquembouche was the ultimate challenge on reality television? Well, they’re back – but forget all that spun toffee and sickly patisserie cream.

The signature snack at the reborn Press Food and Wine is an altogether different creature.

Tom Tilbury’s choux pastry is wrapped in a brittle layer of crisp biscuit “craquelin” that covers the spheres in craters and valleys like little moons. He fills them with a chicken liver parfait that is smoother than a Barry White love song and drops them on a caramelised onion and cherry jam. If the chef wanted a way to announce his move to the city, these seductive savoury soft-centres are his secret weapon.

The recruitment of Tilbury, best known for his chart-topping time at Coriole winery, is unquestionably a coup for Press, but it is only part of the transformation of one of the CBD’s marquee restaurants by its new owner.

Supplied Editorial Beetroot, carrot and caramelised cream at Press Food and Wine, Adelaide

Walk into the ground floor space from Waymouth St and you might be in for a shock. Gone is all the uni bar black paint and long share tables. The same designer, Claire Kneebone, has replaced her original work with a concept that celebrates the heritage bones of the building and dresses them in some art-deco-ish glamour.

A new bar, its liquor displayed in elegant arched recesses, is now the hub of activity. The textured walls, the angled brass pendant lamps and the timber panelling at the back of the banquette would all get a nod of approval from Jay Gatsby and his offsiders.

The new-look bar at Press Food and Wine. Picture: Supplied

Beyond the new look, some of the best traditions of Press have been retained.

Service continues through the afternoon, the wine list is even more extensive.

The Press burger is still there, as is the smattering of offal. And Ngeringa farm at Mount Barker is still the go-to supplier of wonderful salad leaves and vegetables.

Vegies like the beetroot (roasted and dressed in cherry vinegar) and carrots (fermented) that are arranged with petals of persimmon on a splotch of Woodside buffalo curd. All that natural God-given flavour means that, beyond a sprinkling of rose kombucha and tarragon oil, the kitchen can take it easy.

Kingfish, fennel and finger lime at Press Food and Wine, Adelaide.

Other entrees are more involved. The care taken in cutting small cubes of raw kingfish and an even finer dice of fennel is crucial to its textural interplay. And with a layer of horseradish cream underneath and dollops of finger lime pearls dressed in pink pepper, the dance of flavours is intoxicating.

But the veal sweetbreads take the whole mind-blowing texture thing to another level. Peeled, brined and poached before a final searing, these morsels have a luxurious mouthfeel that falls somewhere between the silkiness of an oyster and gentle spring of a scallop. They are tossed through an ajo blanco (almond cream) sauce and covered by fried cavolo nero leaves and fermented green almonds. It’s a dish that shifts the goalposts.

Tom Tilbury has been recruited as chef at Press Food and Wine, Adelaide. Picture: Supplied

Quandong, custard, honeycomb and almonds at Press Food and Wine, Adelaide.

While these smaller serves could be overwhelming in their richness and complexity, particularly if eaten in succession, the mains move to more succinct pleasures.

Pork and eggplant, for instance. A Boston Bay loin cutlet, aged for 28 days, has so much in-built, meaty flavour it can easily fend for itself but when paired with an equally plain disc of lightly pickled eggplant and mustard seeds the result is compelling.

The same goes for a dessert of pitted quandongs steeped in sugar syrup, honeycomb and roasted almonds gathered around a hummock of barely set vanilla custard, a bush trifle that could take pride of place on the Aussie Christmas table.

It’s a classic reimagined for a new era with both respect and imagination. Like the profiteroles. And like Press II, a restaurant that even at this early stage, with the top floor untouched, looks ready for the next decade.