Stranded at Sean’s Kitchen
Sean’s Kitchen is well placed to feed everyone from footy fans to theatre-goers but needs to solve its service issues, writes Simon Wilkinson
‘Round of beers for ktchn $100”, reads the sign above the seafood station.
Fair enough. If you’ve just landed a windfall at the blackjack table, a little bonus for the chefs never goes astray. But at the end of a night where it has been a constant struggle to order a drink of any description, we’re not exactly falling over ourselves to shout someone else.
The experience that unfolds during this dinner at Sean’s Kitchen show how easily system failures out front can undermine the good work elsewhere.
A 10-plus-minute wait to be acknowledged after sitting down is a bad start and service becomes sporadic at best from there. The waitress who does take orders is well briefed but, like other staff, prone to disappear. Much of the time we pour our own wine and water, marooned on our island table with no sign of help anywhere.
It’s not what you expect from this smartly attired restaurant, with prices to match, that has developed a lucrative city dining niche over the past five years.
Located within a short walk of the Adelaide Oval, the Festival Centre and Parliament House, as well as the casino next door, Sean’s offers a formula that seems to keep everyone happy.
Footy fans might call by for a burger on the run. Oysters and a glass of bubbles appeal to the theatre crowd. Pollies and business types head to the private chambers upstairs where they can order as much red wine as they like.
At ground level, the dining room still has plenty of pizzazz. A high vaulted ceiling, replica lamps and wooden benches give it the feel of a train station from another era. More tables spill out to the laneway, now hemmed by barricades to hide away the adjacent building work.
An open kitchen provides constant entertainment, if the smoke and sizzle of a charcoal grill and the shucking of oysters is your thing. Duties here are overseen by John Rankin, a long-standing lieutenant for the Sydney-based Sean Connolly, who provided both the name and brasserie-inspired menu for the venture.
His formula begins with items that require little kitchen intervention. Display cabinets on the stairway have a selection of hams (Italian prosciutto, Spanish jamon and local champions San Jose) that are sliced to order, while raw or pre-cooked seafood makes up a variety of platters, sashimi and prawn cocktails.
Oysters, at their mid-winter peak, come from three locations on the Eyre Peninsula, making it possible to compare the sweetness of Coffin Bay with the fuller, more lingering minerality of Cowell. They come with twin eye-drop bottles filled with white and red vinaigrette, a practical way to ensure they aren’t drowned in dressing.
Raw scampi, complete with their scary alien claws, are split open and dressed with oil, chilli and coriander. Simple. Salmon gravlax get the full Scandi treatment, with beetroot added to a salt-and-sugar cure, so the slices are stained sunset shades of orange through to crimson.
Steaks of various cuts and weights, mostly grain-fed, are cooked over the firepit and served with a choice of sauce on the side.
The rib-eye, from Cape Grim’s pasture-raised herds in Tasmania, shows that the tongs are in expert hands, the meat taken to a perfect medium-rare throughout. The well-developed crust on the outside has just started to blacken, giving it a hint of bitterness which may not be to every taste. A whole chicken breast is swathed in strips of prosciutto, saltimbocca style, which no doubt helps keep it surprisingly moist and succulent. A crisp-skinned fillet of mulloway, one of three local fish varieties on offer, sits in a golden pond of butter sauce, with a wedge of lemon to the side. “Grandma’s carrots” also come with a dousing of butter, while the next-level crispness of the chips might have something to do with the duck fat used to fry them.
Feeling queasy? Don’t bypass dessert and miss a lemon tart that marries bracing levels of citrus tang in the lightest imaginable curd. It’s benchmark stuff. Or go for a tall wedge of baked cheesecake topped with blackberry compote that sticks with the New York brasserie theme.
However, what sets dining in the Big Apple apart from other places is its naturally gregarious people and the flawless service that is found even in many down-at-heel joints. Without that, Sean’s loses its lustre. On this night at least, it feels less New York and more Never Never Land.
SEAN’S KITCHEN
Station Rd, Adelaide; 8218 4244, adelaidecasino.com.au
OWNER SkyCity
CHEFS John Rankin
FOOD Brasserie
STARTERS $20-$29
MAINS $25-$65
DESSERT $14
DRINKS Extensive list blending boutique and mainstream labels but choices limited under $100
OPEN LUNCH and DINNER Daily
SCORE 13.5/20