SA Weekend restaurant review — Sol at SkyCity’s Eos Hotel

A celebrated young chef has moved from a garden centre cafe to the rooftop restaurant of a new hotel, writes Simon Wilkinson.

Snacks including smoked mussel and chicken liver pate in plum at Sol, Eos Hotel

Kane Pollard is like a burst of sunshine in the midst of a gloomy day. He arrives at the table, red bandana holding back his mop of curly locks, full of smiles and enthusiasm. Boundless knowledge but no ego or pretension. The way he likes to cook.

It is hard not to warm to the young chef who, with wife Adele, turned a garden centre cafe on the outer edge of the northeastern suburbs into one of Adelaide’s most remarkable dining destinations.

If the continuing success of Topiary has come against the odds, given its unlikely location, then Pollard’s new challenge looks more daunting again.

In one of the more left-field kitchen appointments of recent years, he has been hired as the inaugural head chef at Sol, the rooftop restaurant and bar of casino operator SkyCity’s sparkling new Eos hotel.

And while it is good news that his hard work and burgeoning talent have been recognised and rewarded, it remains to be seen whether this free spirit can thrive in a corporate culture with high expectations for its new venture.

Golden squash, zucchini, mulloway at Sol.

Where a meal at Topiary usually begins with a wander among the fuchsias and hydrangeas, to get up to Sol we join a line of hyped-up punters to have our booking checked before being ushered to the lifts.

The doors open on the top floor to a passage that leads either to the outdoor bar and toilets or the relative sanctuary of a dining space with a private balcony and killer views to the north and east.

While serious investment has clearly gone into the marble cladding and some very smart blonde timber furniture, the room lacks a bit of character, other than the displays of fresh and dried native flora. The staff on deck, however, are all naturals. From the reception where our booking is sorted, to our waiter/wine guru Nat, to the brigade bearing plates, you won’t find a more professional, likeable bunch.

Sol’s dinner menu is a set selection of five or seven courses, written to highlight the veg component ahead of the protein, which could be confusing.

An opening series of snacks set a high standard. Cubes of buttered sourdough are fried crisp before plopping into a smoked tomato and strawberry consommé dotted with a vivid green oil made from the tomato leaves. Tomatoes on toast has never looked better.

Equally good are delicate smoked mussels, accompanied by lightly pickled onion and a mayonnaise touched with their salty poaching liquor, arranged into an edible “shell” formed from black lavosh.

Concrete jungle dessert from Sol, Eos Hotel.

Chicken liver parfait piped into the hollow of a fresh plum half is a Big Dipper ride from the initial rush of unctuous offal, to the tart, crisp bite of the fruit and back again. Yippee.

The larger servings are more convoluted. There are too many oils, too much fried greenery, too much black, too many elements in all. Perhaps Pollard, master of produce-led simplicity, is trying too hard, feeling the pressure to perform.

Sliced “noodles” of charcoal-grilled calamari are tangled up with strips of pickled kohlrabi under a thatched roof of fried leek tops that dominate the flavour. The squid’s ink is used to colour an avocado puree at the bottom.

A medallion of poached rock lobster on a plinth of Dutch cream potato is topped with “scales” of cucumber that have been compressed with fig leaf oil, the stack forming an island in a foaming, tangerine sea of lobster bisque. Indulgent and intriguing, it hits the mark. The breast of an orchard-raised duck is cured and turned into a sort of poultry bacon that comes with fermented radish, a smoked cherry gel and pickled beetroot. Not bad, if you like that kind of thing, but it seems a bit like turning a Lamborghini into a rally car.

Crisp-skinned fillet of mulloway with golden squash, zucchini blossom and a burnt butter emulsion is sunshine on a plate.

The Concrete Jungle dessert, inspired by Pollard’s new surrounds, features blocks of charcoal-coloured meringue, blueberries (soft and fermenty), shavings of apple and a lemon curd dyed black as the mortar. Black lemon curd? What next?

Like any specimen transplanted to a different environment, this young chef needs support and nurturing while he adapts. The carefully considered but understated style of food he is renowned for will take time to win a new audience. And those that sought him out will need to remember the qualities they so admired in the first place.