SA Weekend restaurant review — Siberia

An Adelaide chef grew up hunting game in the forests of Siberia. Now, she is calling on that experience at a new restaurant in the CBD, writes Simon Wilkinson.

The dining room at Siberia restaurant.

Tiger… bear … reindeer. The three etchings are lined up on the wall of Siberia restaurant like the windows on Play School. While only one is on tonight’s menu, they reflect the colourful origins of this family-run eatery in the East End.

The story begins in the vast forests of Siberia, where a young girl, Elena, camps out for weeks with her father while he works as an ecologist. She learns to hunt for rabbits, boar and other wild game, forages for mushrooms, living off the land as previous generations have done.

Elena soon puts these skills to use in a more formal setting, training in hospitality, landing a job at a prestigious casino, working her way up to become head chef.

She seeks a new life and migrates to Australia, settling in Adelaide. Then, one sunny day at Glenelg, she hears a stranger speaking Russian and they start to chat.

Venison and cherry sauce at Siberia restaurant.

Elena and Serge Ambrose have been together ever since. They married, raised three children and then, in the middle of last year, in the wake of the pandemic lockdown, opened their restaurant and upstairs bar in the property that was previously East Terrace Continental cafe.

Minor demolition work, new light fixtures, a coat of white paint and proper napery have done wonders in a room that now seems more Euro-elegant and spacious, highlighting original features such as the leadlight in the front windows that look across to Rundle Park.

Reindeer horns and a pelt send a clear message that this is the realm of hunters more than gatherers. This is a restaurant devoted first and foremost to meat, particularly that with wild or unusual origins.

Serge, who still works in IT as a day job, has tracked down supplies of feral deer (from the Fleurieu Peninsula) and boar (NSW), as well as alpaca that is farmed near Mount Compass. He also manages the floor with disarming bonhomie and has a strong connection to what is happening in the kitchen.

The menu is a simple typed sheet, a relief after viewing the online version that has photos of varying quality to illustrate each dish. At least the pictures help prepare you for the old-fashioned, hotel-style garnishes of mixed salad leaves and cherry tomatoes that are a recurring theme. Pushing those to one side, the cooking shows considerable skill and the benefit of proper training. It’s not all meat. Elena’s rye bread rolls, made with caraway seeds and stout from local brewer Prancing Pony, are wonderful with a smear of herb butter.

Forest Shrooms from Siberia restaurant.

“Forest Shrooms” is a pressed disc of mixed fungi, the bulk made up by finely chopped flats cooked down to a black, duxelles-style mixture of terrific intensity, with firmer porcini slices and enoki adding extra intrigue, and a melted cheese gratin cap on top.

“Chebureki”, as Serge explains, is Siberia’s take on the meat-filled pastry that can be found across Eastern Europe. Offcuts of wild boar and tenderloin are minced with a peppery spice blend, squished flat and encased in a pasty-like semi-circle of pastry, before being fried. Drizzled with pomegranate molasses, this is a snack that could be consumed in scary quantities if beer was involved.

A neatly trimmed block of wild venison backstrap is poached at low heat, then finished on the grill, to bring it to a picture-book medium rare. Leaner than beef, the meat is tender to the bite and big on flavour, with a level of gaminess that shouldn’t scare anyone away. A well-constructed sweet/sour cherry sauce shows that it’s hard to beat the classics.

At first appearances, an alpaca shank looks similar to the more familiar lamb variety. Tear into the flesh, however, and it is remarkably dense with the dark colour of a deep-seated bruise, while flavour-wise it is like comparing a milkshake to a full-bodied red wine. Cranberry sauce is nothing like the supermarket stuff, and carrots, peas and pickled veg complete the plate.

Dessert offers rolled crepes filled with strawberries, drizzled with chocolate and partnered by a Chantilly cream. A grainy gorgonzola ice cream with dried rockmelon dust that looks like the orange powder on Twisties is definitely an acquired taste.

Siberia isn’t your typical “cheap and cheerful” family-run ethnic eatery. The produce it uses, particularly some of the meat, demands higher prices. However, like the best of these places, it is a gateway to the kitchen traditions and broader culture of a very different part of the world.