SA Weekend restaurant review — Seed, Clare Valley
An old bank has been transformed into a top-notch bistro and rooftop bar that is a game-changer for a regional town, writes Simon Wilkinson.
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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.
In the process, part-owners Guy Parkinson (chef) and Candice Leighton (manager) have cemented their place as linchpins of the region’s dining revival. The young employees they have mentored have helped lift standards across the Valley. And, as much as anyone, they have shown their community that good food needn’t be intimidating.
The Seed story started seven years ago when Guy and Candice, then but no longer a couple, moved to Clare from regional NSW and took over an old chaff mill a few blocks from where they are now.
When they moved out and started planning this project, they were stymied by the arrival of Covid. Determined to retain staff and keep the brand alive, they started a pop-up diner selling burgers and fried chicken, a business that only closed when the new one was ready to go.
Which brings us to the old Commonwealth Bank branch, now unrecognisable from outside with botanical street-art covering its rendered walls and a timber-clad pop-top built specially for the rooftop bar. Downstairs, a sliding door opens to the shelves and chillers of a deli section that sells everything from packaged goods, cheeses and charcuterie, to elite cuts of beef and pork for the DIY brigade.
Beyond that is the dining room and a choice of classic bentwood chairs and low tables or stools pulled up around the long curve of a concrete-topped bar.
This is the dress circle for some kitchen theatre, a place to watch as the finishing touches are made to each plate and pizzas are shuffled about inside the fiery maw of a gleaming wood oven.
About the pizzas. At this visit, the idea was that they would be eaten upstairs or as takeaway, but not in the bistro, though, as the experience of the family above shows, there were exceptions. It was a confusing scenario that has now been resolved.
Putting that aside, the rest of the menu reads like a culinary version of the European soccer tournament: France v Italy v Spain v something vaguely Scandi, all interpreted through a regional lens.
Snacks include the Basque tapas of anchovy, green olive and pickled pepper known as “gildas”, Coffin Bay oyster with a mignonette dressing, and toast fingers laden with spicy salami and anchovy.
A puffed pork crackling cracker topped with a big splat of duck liver pate and Luxardo preserved cherry serves early notice that, when a recipe calls for butter or other naughty gear, Guy rarely holds back.
Even something as parsimonious as roasted cauli, yoghurt and grains sees the veg poached in buttermilk, before roasting in the wood oven crowned with a coarse crumble of nuts and spices, then given a final drizzle of melted goodness.
Pumpkin gnocchi are flash-fried in brown butter and sage until one side is brown and toasty and the accompanying muscatels are shrivelled and have the burnt toffee flavour of the fruit on the top of a Christmas cake.
A heritage-breed pork chop from Boston Bay is grilled on a wood fire under a weight that helps the marbling render evenly through the meat. A little smokiness along with a hefty strip of fat along the edge gives the pork some balcony qualities that work beautifully with a reduction sauce bolstered with marinated prunes. Add butter-fried slices of apple and quince, along with a quince puree, and this is bistro with the bells and whistles.
To finish, an exemplary buttermilk panna cotta comes with “cool weather fruits”, a not-entirely-accurate description for a mix of strawberries, raspberries and macerated rhubarb. On the way out, we head upstairs and a few happy groups are lingering over a drink.
Cocktails on a rooftop. Rare roast beef sandwiches for lunch. Quality bistro cooking. Pizza for the family. In a small town like Clare, it’s not overstating things to say Seed changes the dynamic.
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