Behold the future of Adelaide’s fine food
FOOD isn’t what it used to be. The way it’s prepared, cooked, presented and eaten has changed over the years. We picked the brains of five Adelaide chefs and discovered how the industry has evolved — and what to expect from the food of the future.
FOOD isn’t what it used to be. The way it’s prepared, cooked, presented and eaten has changed over the years. Reporter Stephanie Timotheou picked the brains of five Adelaide chefs and discovered how the industry has evolved — and what to expect from the food of the future.
SEAN CONNOLLY
Restaurateur
THE future of food and hospitality is about the “all-round experience”, according to restaurateur Sean
Connolly.
“The produce needs to be local and sustainably farmed, the service needs to be outstanding and have personality and our guests’ expectations are high, they want to be blown away,” Connolly says.
The English-born chef, who has six restaurants across Australia, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates and Dubai, says appreciation for boutique, homegrown producers will also grow.
“South Australia will lead the way, we are already so passionate about buying and consuming local,” he says.
“I use bluefin tuna from Port Lincoln, the most amazing beef from Mayura Station and the Fleurieu Peninsula and oysters from KI and Coffin Bay … we have access to all this gorgeous SA produce and this trend will keep growing.”
As for the dining experience, Connolly says restaurants will move toward personalised experiences like dishes being finished at the table and customised menus to suit different tastes.
He has already adopted this in his Adelaide Casino restaurant Sean’s Kitchen, where people can dine in the restaurant’s kitchen.
“You can feel the heat from the wood grill and get an inside look into the pace and passion in my kitchen,” he says.
“This kind of experience will gain momentum and not just for special occasions.” Connolly says new varieties of wine will be the next big thing, saying local producers are going to “seriously up their game”.
“There are some really interesting varieties coming out of the Adelaide Hills and Clare Valley, so get ready to try something you’ve never heard of and be seriously impressed,” Connolly says.
JOCK ZONFRILLO
Restaurateur
JOCK Zonfrillo first picked up a kitchen utensil when he was 12 and has been in the hospitality industry ever since.
The Scottish-born restaurateur, who runs Orana and Bistro Blackwood on Rundle St, says one of the biggest changes in the restaurant game has been customer expectations.
“People are a lot more demanding of services, they pay a lot more money than they used to and with that comes a huge amount of expectation,” the 42-year-old says.
In the digital age, Zonfrillo says every diner has become a restaurant reviewer.
“It’s easy to hop on a keyboard and give feedback on a restaurant without allowing others to experience it for themselves,” he says.
Home delivery apps such as UberEats and Deliveroo have their place, he says, but they aren’t doing restaurants justice.
“It is the worst possible version of that restaurant’s work,” he says.
“It’s a convenience market, all they’re doing is making money off people’s need for convenience.
“Is takeaway and Netflix the future? Maybe. Will it ever replace an experience in a restaurant? Never.”
In the near future, Zonfrillo predicts the price consumers pay for a meal will jump — 30 to 40 per cent — across fast food and fine dining.
“The consumer needs to realise the cost of food (purchasing produce) is much greater than it used to be,” he says.
“This will happen in as little as five years because there is so much food being created in restaurants for very little money and a lot of staff aren’t being paid properly or receiving full entitlements.”
BREE MAY
My Kitchen Rules 2014 winner and Food According to Bree catering
WINNING television show My Kitchen Rules in 2014 gave Bree May the confidence she needed to pursue her dream in the hospitality industry.
The mum of two is now running her own business, Food According to Bree, which offers catering, classes and workshops.
Since entering the industry, May has noticed a huge trend toward raw food.
“People are more into gut health and food from a medicinal side of things, but I also reckon people are going back to old school techniques to tie in with that raw food thing,” she says.
Pickling, preserving and smoking are techniques that have been revived and will continue into the future.
May says a “waste-not” mentality is becoming popular as people become more conscious of what they are throwing in the bin.
“We do live in a really wasteful society and the cost of living is so high; why would you want to throw out food when you can utilise it in different ways?” she says.
In the future, May predicts more homeowners will make use of community gardens and become more self-sufficient in terms of growing or sourcing their own produce.
“A lot of people in the city have their own chickens for eggs and community gardens have already begun popping up in suburbs like Brompton, which you used to only find in tight-knit country towns,” he says.
LAURA CASSAI
MasterChef 2014 runner-up and cookbook author
SHE has only been in hospitality for four years, but Laura Cassai — a chef at Barossa Valley’s Henley Farm restaurant — says the industry has evolved considerably.
“I think the public has more of an understanding of food, where it comes from and why it’s important to support small growers,” the MasterChef 2014 runner-up says.
“At Hentley Farm we grow our own vegies and are looking to have our own livestock and use them on the menu so I definitely think we’re moving toward a more sustainable future in that way.”
Cassai says native ingredients such as salt bush and lemon myrtle will continue to be used, as consumers become more aware of the quality produce on our doorstep.
“Especially in South Australia, everyone loves using local and I don’t see it going the other way or people relying on more stuff coming from overseas,” she says.
“People will continue to want what’s fresh and what’s in season and we’re very lucky to have direct access to that.”
Over the next 10 to 20 years, Cassai predicts cooking techniques will get simpler.
“I personally think we’ll just go back to basics and food will still look just as beautiful on the plate,” she says.
“People are, even now, beginning to see that you don’t have to do too much if the produce is the best it can be.”
And for the time-poor at home, packet sauces and pastas will remain popular as people work longer hours and prefer to use their time elsewhere.
“People are still into the traditional side of cooking, but being more time-poor at home, might make their own sauce from scratch and make the pasta out of a packet,” Cassai says.
SIMON BRYANT
Tasting Australia festival director
A fixture of the Adelaide food scene for more than 20 years, Simon Bryant is now the director of city’s largest annual food and wine festival, Tasting Australia.
In the next decade or two, he hopes to see the disappearance of “trend-driven food”.
“I’m a great optimist that we’ll bust through what I think is a lot of hoo-haa — diet trends, food fads,” Bryant says.
“You can’t just drop a staple globally off your diet because someone says it’s bad for you; a whole heap of farmers are invested in that.”
And despite the need to support local growers, Bryant believes the industry still needs to import its produce from overseas.
“We don’t grow a lot of things well here,” he says.
“If someone else is growing something better due to the conditions, don’t wreck our land trying to make that local.”
Bryant is a firm believer that cooking is all about the preparation and it pays to make things from the ground up — something he encourages more people to do in the future.
“There’s nothing wrong with takeaway as an infrequent treat but without the prep work, food is nothing,” Bryant says.
“Don’t forget the journey is just as important as the arrival.
“I feel inadequate as a human if I
buy my dog kibble — the gesture of making his food from scratch is so important.
“Preparing food, no matter how tedious, is valuable time spent and when I see new apartments without proper kitchens I shiver; the meal means nothing without it.”
Away from the kitchen at home, he says restaurant diners are now influenced more than ever with internet reviews and the trend of “Instafoodies” who purely post photos of dishes.
“Because of this there’s no awe or surprise when you get to the Michelin star restaurant because you’ve almost eaten there,” Bryant says.
“The real beauty is not knowing everything before you go.
“The best meals I’ve had, I’ve gone in blind.
“I don’t read food reviews because I don’t want to have a preconception.”
A TASTE OF OUR DINING EVOLUTION …
Then: Milkshake
Now: Freakshake
Gone are the days where you would go to your local cafe and all that would be on offer were standard chocolate, vanilla or strawberry milkshakes — with whipped cream and a cherry on top if you were lucky. Cafes and late-night dessert bars have taken the humble milkshake to a whole new level with freakshakes topped with an abundance of sickly-sweet ingredients — think lollies, brownies, ice cream and a drizzle of choc syrup. Some can cost up to $39, like the 24K Gold Nutella Meets Kinder freakshake at cafe 50sixone in Prospect and Hyde Park. It comes with two Italian zeppole (doughnuts), a Kinder Surprise, Nutella ice cream and mini jar of Nutella, sprinkled with 24K gold pebbles.
Then: Sushi roll
Now: Poke bowl
A $3 sushi roll has long been the go-to lunch option for time-poor city workers. Deconstruct your sushi and put it in a bowl and you’ve got yourself a $15 poke bowl with all the trimmings, plus more. The dish is made to order with your choice of sushi rice, raw fish, chicken, shredded beetroot, edamame beans, corn, carrot, seaweed and sesame seeds.
Then: Cafe latte
Now: Beetroot latte, chai latte, matcha latte, turmeric latte and “E3Live”
Almost every cafe in Adelaide now serves lattes of all colours and flavours, including beetroot, chai, green tea matcha and turmeric. The latest to come on to the scene uses E3Live; a blue, powdered superfood. Nutrition Republic, in Bowden and Hyde Park, has hopped on the bandwagon, using it in its Blue Majik latte.
Then: Porridge and cereal
Now: Acai bowl
Mushy porridge and bland cereal is a thing of the past. Diners are spoiled for choice with fruit-filled acai bowls loaded with blended acai berries and topped with goji berries, chia seeds, coconut chips, bee pollen and cacao nibs. Acai bowls are so popular that cafes dedicated to them have popped up, like Delicia Acai + Protein Bar in North Adelaide and Ebenezer Pl.