SAWeekend restaurant review: Joe’s Henley Beach
Seafood by the seaside, served up in a cosy shack with a view to die for and easygoing vibe. It’s a deliciously simple recipe for dining bliss, writes Simon Wilkinson.
SA Weekend
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No, it’s not a bad life. I’ve just had two dinners out on successive nights while looking across the waves and setting sun at Adelaide’s suburban beaches.
Thankfully, I’m not writing about the first experience, in the joyless, stale dining room of a hotel owned by a large national company, where the water is close but somehow has zero impact, as if the room is hermetically sealed and the view just a loop playing on a massive TV.
Here, disconsolate staff will bring you a seafood plate of scrawny prawns, flabby squid and anonymous fish without any pretence they have been procured from anywhere nearby. I can’t think of a venue that wastes its potential more thoroughly.
Joe’s of Henley Beach, fortunately, is the complete opposite. Talk about making the best of what you have.
With modest renovations and a more ambitious mindset, new owners Penny Hospitality have broadened the appeal of the legendary kiosk without endangering the easygoing, beachy vibe that made it so attractive.
Old regulars, including a who’s-who of Adelaide sport, business and politics, still gather for their morning coffees.
Mums still bring sandy-feeted kids in to buy hot chips or an ice-cream. And the paint is still peeling away in places like a little nose too long in the sun.
The main dining space is on an enclosed deck that from inside seems to be right on top of the sand.
With simple sliding doors and windows, rattan in the chairs and light fittings, and a fresh paint job of dazzling white and pale blue, it feels like a well-looked-after beach shack. In other words, perfect.
And what would you want to eat in such a place? Things that are caught in these waters, of course. To that end, chef Krish Dutt has created a menu that morphs into various forms for daily lunches (perhaps a simple fish taco) and a more elaborate dinner at weekends.
The latter is offered as four set courses of seafood (plus a vego option) for $60, sound value given the quality and quantity of produce in play. No scrawny prawns here. Rather, we get the aptly named kings from the Spencer Gulf, all in terrific nick, peeled between head and tail to show off their sculpted midriffs, served on ice with wedges of lime and a tangy house-made cocktail sauce.
That’s an Aussie Christmas, right there.
Raw kingfish is diced into small cubes, tossed with cucumber and herbs, then finished with salmon roe, avocado puree and blobs of Kewpie mayonnaise. The tartare, which would benefit greatly from a squeeze of lemon or lime, is served with Chinese-restaurant-style prawn crackers that, while daggy, do make an efficient scoop.
Port Lincoln cockles (a slightly plumper variety than those from Goolwa) are the stars of a pasta vongole, made with strands of linguine, fermented chilli, parsley and a formidable whack of garlic. Perhaps that’s the reason some of the little molluscs have jumped out of their shells and are wallowing in the delicious buttery juices.
The fish of the day is a grilled fillet of red snapper, done to the minute, laid on a puddle of parsnip puree and partnered by a fennel salad and assortment of beans, peas and zucchini straight from the spring vegetable patch. It’s a celebration of both sea and season.
Dessert is an affogato, using house-made vanilla ice-cream with espresso and Baileys, a reflection of the cafe’s core business perhaps, though another choice or even just some fruit would have been welcome.
All this is accompanied by well-chosen local wines at fair prices and delivered by a relaxed but helpful waiting brigade who seem to enjoy being in this setting as much as us.
There you have it. Seafood by the seaside. Simple really. It’s a template, fingers crossed, some others might follow.
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