Tasting Australia: The state’s top chefs get real about the industry right now

These restaurant owners and chefs share exactly what’s eating the hospitality industry in South Australia.

6 min read

March 28, 2025 - 12:00PM

SA Weekend

Oliver Brown, managing director at The Big Easy Group, at East End restaurant Yiasou George in Adelaide, Kaurna Yarta on Wednesday, January 4, 2023. (The Advertiser/ Morgan Sette)

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Dan Moss looks back at the dark days of early last year with a mix of emotions.

The chef and his wife Annika had put 12 years of “blood, sweat and tears” into their groundbreaking restaurant Terroir in the Clare Valley. In the end, it wasn’t shutting the doors for the last time that hurt the most.

“One of the toughest things I’ve had to do in life was pressing send on a social media post (to announce we were closing),” Moss recalls. “But once we had made the decision a big weight was lifted off our shoulders.”

Hearing bad news about the state’s restaurants and cafes, businesses that contribute so much to our health and happiness, hardly comes as a shock. Many are doing it tough.

Having made it through the perils of a pandemic, they have run headlong into an economic double-whammy.

On one hand, many of their customers have less money to splash while struggling with the soaring prices of power, groceries and other essentials. And this fall in revenue comes at the same time as their own inflated bills hit the ledger.

Dan Moss shares the tough decision to close Terroir. Picture: Tim White

Oliver Brown, managing director at The Big Easy Group. Picture: The Advertiser/ Morgan Sette

Terroir has been the go-to in Clare. Picture: Delicious

Restaurants are big consumers of power to run ovens, refrigerators, lights et cetera and dramatic increases in the cost of top-quality produce has made their version of a visit to the supermarket extra challenging. Rent can also be a killer, depending on lease arrangements. Add spiralling wages in a business that relies on significant staffing levels and an already-thin profit margin is in serious danger.

“The holy grail everyone talks about is 10 per cent (profit),” says Oliver Brown, from the Big Easy Group of restaurants, cafes and bars.

“But when you look at all the data, the proportion of venues hitting that margin is super slim – and even worse now.”

Brown, who also sits on the board of the recently formed Australian Restaurant & Cafe Association, estimates that wages and cost of goods can amount to 65 to 70 per cent of all revenue. “If you are a little overstaffed, or costs are blowing out it can mean a lot of pain,” he says.

Inevitably, the past year has seen a growing band of owners make the heartbreaking decision to shut their doors permanently.

The impact is being felt across a mix of locations and demographics. Seafood specialist Fishbank, Vietnamese favourite Little NNQ and longstanding suburban restaurants Cardone’s at Glenelg and Martini’s of Norwood are a few of the higher-profile venues that have been lost.

Talk to some of the people running SA restaurants, however, and the mood is not one of gloom or despair. They are keen to tell a different story – one of resilience, flexing to meet the needs of a changing world and, most of all, the upside of working in an industry and a state with so much going for it.

Food at Terroir restaurant, Auburn. Picture: Delicious

As many of our most talented chefs, drinks people and other hospitality professionals get ready to join with their colleagues from interstate and overseas for the annual Tasting Australia food festival, it seems opportune to check how they are faring.

The festival’s director, Karena Armstrong, who owns McLaren Vale’s beloved Salopian Inn, remains optimistic. While acknowledging the challenges, she says businesses are adapting to meet the needs of their customers.

“Hospitality is all about reading the room and that is what you have to do,” she says, citing examples of businesses that have pivoted to a lower cost option such as high-flyer Magill Estate’s decision to open a sando joint and Africola’s suburban canteen and Adelaide Fringe catering operation.

“There is genuine optimism out there – a sense of pride in what we do and that we are not giving in.”

It’s a message backed up by Sharon Romeo, who owns Fino Vino and Fino at Seppeltsfield with chef David Swain and has worked in restaurant businesses for more than 30 years.

“Prices are going up and we are feeling it,” she says, “but we have to be creative in how we keep on top of everything. We couldn’t just wait for customers to come. We really had to work on our business, not just in it.”

Fino Vino has introduced a three-course express menu at $55, including a glass of wine, and more recently an aperitivo happy hour, “recognising that many people still want to have a good time but don’t have a lot of money”.

All this positive talk is not pie in the sky, if you can excuse the culinary metaphor. The latest ABS data shows that, despite the closures, the number of restaurants and cafes in SA actually grew by more than 5 per cent in the past financial year.

And while some of these newcomers will be small neighbourhood coffee shops and the like, others are major investments.

One of those giving SA a vote of confidence is renowned chef Justin James, who took Restaurant Botanic to a series of accolades. When James left that position, job offers came from around the country but he ultimately chose to stay and put his money and creative energy into the yet-to-open Restaurant Aptos at Stirling.

Then there is Station Road, the restaurant/bar that opened at the base of the Festival Tower at the end of last year with globetrotting New Zealander Baine Stubbs in charge of the kitchen.

The trio of owners, from the East End Cellars group, have invested nearly $3m in the venue. “It’s a big risk for the three of us and me personally,” says the restaurant’s manager Mathieu Smeysters.

“I’ve put my house on the line and every dollar I own. Unfortunately, we ended up opening in the middle of a small economic crisis. But I do believe in the industry here in Adelaide, if you look at the quality of chefs who are coming here and the great businesses opening, we will get there.”

Oliver Brown, “if you are a little overstaffed, or costs are blowing out it can mean a lot of pain,” he says. (The Advertiser/ Morgan Sette)

Salopia Inn dish. Picture: Delicious

Salopian Inn is a rustic eatery in McLaren Vale. Picture: Delicious

Back at Salopian, Armstrong has taken a long-term leap of faith in building extensive gardens around her restaurant to supply much of the produce.

“Instead of growing grass, we’re growing food,” she says. “It’s a crazy time to do it but this is the embodiment of something I’ve wanted for so long. It’s a really nice moment of showing you should dare to dream big. We can’t do anything about the wider economy but you can always tell your own story.”

Smeysters would like people to understand that the prices charged in restaurants aren’t keeping up with rising costs. He gives the example of paying €55 for a pizza in Rome. “That’s $80 in Australian money. Imagine if somewhere here charged $80 for a pizza … the world would be on fire,” he laughs.

It’s a theme also picked up by Romero. “The thing that really gives me the gripes is the keyboard warriors who still don’t understand what it costs to put something beautiful on a plate and deliver that experience,” she says.

“I’d like a little more compassion from people who come into a venue just to understand all the effort that goes in.”

For Moss, as one door closed another opened almost immediately. He is now head chef at Skillogalee, the winery in the western ranges of the Clare Valley that’s just begun an extensive renovation of the historic cottage that is home to its cellar door and restaurant. For the next 12 to 18 months Moss and his team have relocated to the nearby Barrel House.

“This is the opportunity of a lifetime,” he says. “This is my reward for what we went through at Terroir. We are very fortunate that (owner) Simon Clausen has decided to invest in not just the Clare Valley but us as professionals.

“There is a lot of gloom and doom around the industry and negative stories. But there are still some very good operations around and some mighty talented people, not just weathering the storm but turning it into something more positive.

“Hospitality is about looking after people and those who do that will continue to thrive.”

Tasting Australia festival runs from May 2-11 with a line-up including Karena Armstrong, Sharon Romeo, Baine Stubbs and many other local hospitality stars