SA Weekend restaurant review — Bush DeVine Winery Restaurant

A young chef’s bold use of native ingredients makes this one of the state’s most exciting regional experiences, writes Simon Wilkinson.

The dining room at Bush DeVine and Pauletts winery - Picture Nadinne Grace Photography.

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.

Roasted winter fruits, yoghurt and native hibiscus sorbet at Bush DeVine, Pauletts winery

His inspired ways with native ingredients have quickly taken Bush DeVine from quirky-cafe-with-a-killer-view to an important part of the regional dining landscape. Not that you will notice much of a change walking through the Pauletts cellar door and out to a deck that makes the most of the winery’s stunning outlook over the eucalypt stands, pastures and vineyards of the Polish Hill valley.

Winter in Clare doesn’t muck about, making the plastic blinds (they could do with a clean) and gas heaters essential. A stack of rugs near the door is the last line of defence, not a bad idea given many of those dining this day seemed to be making the most of their retirement. Go the Grey Nomads!

Therein lies a point. Bush DeVine might have a hot young chef but goes out of its way to ensure it stays inclusive and accommodating.

Saltbush pappardelle, warrigal, washed rind cheese at Bush DeVine, Pauletts winery

Lunch can be as simple as a flight of wine with matching canapes or a single plate accompanied by bread and saltbush butter.

Even the three or five courses in the tasting menu can be swapped about, though, as we discover, the diner doesn’t always know better.

Our selection starts with a mixed assortment of mushrooms – including meaty slabs of full-grown kings, slippery shimeji and a frizzy tangle of crisp fried enoki – laid on an intense emulsion of miso caramelised with leaves from an emu bush. A jug of custard infused with kombu (seaweed), shiitake and white pepper offer an indulgent but comparatively mellow counterpoint.

Wide green ribbons of saltbush pappardelle are folded through a mix of wilted warrigal leaves and “bushfire” (really!) roasted chestnuts. It’s all quite parsimonious before you hit wedges of washed rind cheese that melt slowly into a rich ooze and give everything a wicked coating.

Locally raised Greenslade chicken is brined and cooked in two stages – a gentle poaching in master stock just sets the flesh, then a bracing sizzle in the fryer crisps the skin. Portions of leg and breast, both sensational, are laid over broccolini spears and a puddle of the braising stock sharpened with tamarind, before finishing with bits and pieces of Chinese sausage, peanuts, shallots and fermented chilli.

Tea smoked pork belly, green onion pancake from Bush DeVine, Pauletts winery

Along with the pork belly pancakes that come earlier, it’s a line-up of plates in which the flavour pedal never leaves the floor and, by the end, what was a joy ride threatens to get out of control.

On reflection, the chef’s selection, which starts with a relatively pared back barramundi tartare, would have been a better option.

Erky also has the balance just right in a dessert of roasted pear half, quince segments and batons of rhubarb arranged on a foundation of labna (strained yoghurt). Crisp shards of caramelised yoghurt point skywards, caramelised apple is dotted about and a scoop of rose myrtle and native hibiscus/rosella sorbet has the colour and fruity acidity of raspberry. Complex, yes, but not overblown.

Erky is a real talent and the young team assembled around him at Bush DeVine operate with a commendable level of professionalism and pride.