SA Weekend restaurant review — Pirate Life at Port Adelaide
You don’t even have to drink beer to find a reason for lunch at Pirate Life’s impressive home, writes Simon Wilkinson.
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Out front of Pirate Life’s brewery and bar, smoke drifts slowly across the courtyard from a grill in the corner.
And it isn’t sausage, onions or even steak producing that amazing aroma.
For lunch today, we have half a southern rock lobster cooked over fire, with garlic butter, chips and salad. Champagne taste on a beer budget? Hell yeah.
Pirate Life has made a habit of exceeding expectations since its three Perth-based founders decided Adelaide was the place to fulfil their craft brewing dreams.
When business boomed and they needed to scale up production, they saw the potential in an old wool store in the backstreets of Port Adelaide, encouraged by the ongoing revival of the surrounding neighbourhood.
The shed they bought makes an aircraft hangar look piddly, with a towering roofline and acres of space.
This has been split into two zones, with all the stainless-steel tanks and piping of the brewery at the back looking as if it might have direct lines to the polished concrete bar that bristles with beer taps.
A variety of seating and other sources of entertainment are spread around the section at the front, with a grid of steel girders creating the impression of a false ceiling overhead.
If that all sounds as blokey as a parliamentary golf day, you might be surprised. While the in-house barber is popular and we see what looks like a low-key buck’s gathering, there are also plenty of family groups. Prams are parked around tables and young kids are having a ball sliding pucks along the shuffleboard or getting the hang of an old-school pinball table.
The 22 beers on tap are naturally a big attraction but you don’t need to know your pilsener from your stout or sour to feel at home. You can even drink wine!
And resident chef Rocky Oliviera has a CV that has seen his talents long sought after. Here he is working from a food truck parked permanently out front, as well as the adjacent fire pit that he has recently taken over. Both have their own short menus to mix and match into a spread that could be anything from a few snacks, to a Mayura wagyu burger with bacon jalapeño jam, to a shared feast, albeit one served with cardboard plates and wooden cutlery.
Lobster isn’t the only luxury.
Three crumbed arancini balls are filled with a cheesy ooze fragrant with minced mushroom and come with a side serve of truffle aioli.
A meze-style plate is loaded up with pickled carrot, onion and celery, roasted cauliflower sprinkled with sumac, artichokes, a yoghurt-based dip and grilled slices of sourdough from local baker SoiBoii. It’s a good one to share.
Coleslaw goes on vacation in a salad of shredded white cabbage, carrot, grilled snake beans, cucumber and cherry tomatoes, lightly coated in a nuoc cham dressing that creeps up with its subtle hit of heat. For what is billed as a rare beef salad, however, the pieces of grilled steak are thin on the ground.
The lobster, at $50, is in a different price bracket but is an investment that comes with no regrets. A decent sized specimen is brushed with garlic butter and grilled in its shell which both protects the flesh from drying and, as it chars, releases its special incense for an extra flavour hit. Remnants of mustard goo have also been left in the head, giving the adjacent meat a golden stain and a pungency that real crustacean fanatics will love. With salad and a big bowl of shoestring fries, this is a meal for two that is hard to top and a reminder that all the turmoil with China does have a silver lining.
For dessert, a wedge of dark-topped Basque-style baked cheesecake sits in a puddle of passionfruit and acai glaze, a combination of ingredients that can also be found in one of the beers.
Pirate Life may now be in the hands of a larger, industrial-scale brewer but the spirit of co-operation, community and hands-on crafting is alive and well across all levels here.
Whether it is pulling beer at the bar or serving food on disposable plates, staff work with enthusiasm and pride that many more formal restaurants could only dream about. The same goes for chef Rocky who will have a proper kitchen inside by the end of the year. As long as the fire stays put and the seafood supply continues, all will be good.
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