Inside Adelaide’s new Indigo at the Central Market
It’s reassuring when a hotel includes an exact location in its name. It gives a clear context and affirms expectations.
It’s reassuring when a hotel includes an exact location in its name. It gives a clear context and affirms expectations. And so it is with the freshly launched Hotel Indigo Adelaide Markets. The property couldn’t be closer to the South Australian capital’s heritage central market precinct unless it actually stood atop those covered arcades straddling Grote and Gouger streets.
There’s also the neatness of knowing what to expect from the IHG Hotels & Resorts’ Indigo branding. It’s a “lifestyle” approach that actually delivers the goods in a hospitality sector where the very use of the word is wantonly overused and frequently tokenistic. Indigo does what it says on the wrapper. There’s an embrace of the immediate destination, a focus on local art and design, and clear connections to neighbourhood and community. I’ve seen it writ large at Hotel Indigo Singapore Katong and its strong references to site and culture.
The Adelaide property is an Australian first for the brand and it turns the expected formality of a city hotel pretty much on its head. Although there’s a regular “front door”, almost everyone I observe just wafts in via the well-named Market & Meander café, bar and diner. It’s a free-flowing space that opens to the street and could work in any urban precinct as a stand-alone facility. Here, it’s a portal to the lobby, where the reception bar is fitted with a coffee machine and the colour scheme is as perky as a double espresso.
The hot pink refers to the colour of two-term SA premier Don Dunstan’s shorts, his unforgettable fashion statement for social diversity and justice. Hanging white lanterns are oriental in shape and style and red touches echo the proximity and traditional colour of the city’s Chinatown district. Rounded archways effectively evoke classic market vernacular and the refurbished early 20th-century façade of the nearby Her Majesty’s Theatre.
The look is promoted as “raw and refined”, which harks to the big-picture concept of building on the site of a former textile factory and introducing elements such as brushed copper fixtures that nod to the state’s mining industry.
There are low-backed stools and elevated benches, retro banquettes and a mix of styles of tables. It feels full of possibility, as if an impromptu fiesta could suddenly take place or a troupe of Chinese dragon dancers could appear in a clash of cymbals. It’s all so agreeable that I feel no hurry, as I would at most hotels, to head straight towards the lift.
There are 145 guestrooms and suites and a rooftop bar on level 16, deftly known as Merrymaker, offering a raw bar of premium seafood, and cocktails such as wattleseed negroni, seemingly colour-matched with a long sunset. Lobster rolls are chunky, the Coffin Bay oysters are plump and briny, Spencer Gulf prawns are mighty, charcuterie is sourced from market providores across the way and all suppliers are listed on the menu, right down to butter from Dairyman Farm in the Barossa. Back at Market & Meander, Italian-born chef Gabriele reigns over an open kitchen and dishes me up a superb tagliolini with blue swimmer crab, cherry tomatoes and pancetta crumbs, while Kolkata-born assistant manager Snehal and a young crew attend tables with charm and courtesy. The cargo of best wines from all South Australia’s regions is to be expected but the list of local gins defies imagination, both in scale and inventive labelling, and tap beer by McLaren Vale’s Goodieson Brewery is unique to the hotel.
The look in guestrooms is all about layering of textiles and colours and a neat organisation of open storage space. Full wall murals behind all guestroom beds hark to the city’s best-known events; in my case, it’s Adelaide Festival of Arts in March 1974, and the collage-style artwork is a riot of red, green and black. It gives the sleeping space a touch of fun and drama, and other tactile references including strips of tessellated tiles common to Adelaide’s Federation and Victorian villas, and big rugs patterned in geometric shapes. A window-side chaise-longue in deep red, green or purple is a perfect reading, cloud-watching or TV-viewing spot.
I like the thoughtfulness of a designated space to store and easily open a suitcase, intuitive lighting and cooling controls, and a digital clock easily seen from the acreage of a king bed piled with feather pillows and jewel-coloured velvet cushions.
The ensuite is behind a frosted glass wall that conceals a basin, toilet and huge shower. Hurrah for the illuminated magnifying mirror, my favourite Biology botanical gels and lotions, plus bathtubs in pricier categories. There’s a coffee machine, teas by local outfit T Bar and porcelain crockery from Moda in muted tones.
This is a hotel of accomplished design and purpose that feels fresh, relevant and very “now”. Adelaide’s new local hero, for sure.
More to the story
Mark Gleeson of Australian Food Tours is an ex-chef and keen advocate of his state’s produce. He reminds me it’s been more than a decade since he last led me on one of his morning excursions around the covered lanes of Adelaide Central Markets but many favourite suppliers are present and correct. Maria of Lucia’s Pizza and Spaghetti Bar (and now providore) hasn’t aged a day but the lunchtime lines for the No 1 panini stretch even further.
Who could resist a bright tea-towel decorated with illustrations of the popular roll’s ingredients, from basil leaves and a drizzle of olive oil to sliced tomato, mozzarella and prosciutto. New since my previous visit to Lucia’s is a small-batch range of bottled pasta sauces. “No skins or seeds from the tomatoes,” says Maria of the robust red mix, which comes in mixes such as chilli-spiked arrabiatta and napolitana, and honours the memory and skills of Maria’s family matriarch, Lucia Rosella, a champion of southern Italian cooking since she opened the store in 1957.
Later, coffee and orange and wattle-seed cake under the ceiling fans at Zuma (“organised chaos since 1993” says the sign) is an unmissable treat but there are new discoveries to be made. Gleeson, who sits on the Traders Advisory Board and has been running tours for decades, introduces me to the delights of the Smelly Cheese Shop, where a taste of Lilyarra white goat’s cheese is a revelation and I’m told there’s a waiting list for the washed rind Delice aux Truffes, infused with truffles and, quite possibly, magical fairy dust.
At the family-run Turkish Delight Mediterranean Sweetery, I’m offered pistachio-dotted halva and stretchy snippets of Turkish delight in flavours of luxuriously sweet white rose and zingy mango and chilli flakes. We visit a stand solely dedicated to the abundant produce of Kangaroo Island, drop by Gleeson’s own Providore No 66 stall of groceries and treats (an almond toffee meringue and slice of Persian love cake, please), and tarry to inspect Japanese and Algerian specialties, old-style best butchery cuts and specialty purveyors of mushrooms, Barossa mettwurst and paella.
The markets opened in 1869 and it’s wonderful to see this hall of makers and bakers, and a new breed of foragers and organic specialists, not just thriving but diversifying. Gleeson has plans for a Spanish eatery near the Grote Street entrance with tables out to the pavement in the style of Melbourne’s Lygon Street. There’ll be bocadillos and tapas with a seafood slant and perhaps another espresso machine. “The markets only have 40 … so far,” is Gleeson’s parting parry.
* The South Australian government’s Great State Vouchers initiative offers $50, $100 and $200 options to use on participating hosted tours and experiences state-wide, valid from late April.
In the know
Hotel Indigo Adelaide Markets has a sixth-floor pool, gym and meeting facilities; packages with touring and other extras are available. Launch rates from $194.40 a room.
Susan Kurosawa was a guest of Hotel Indigo Adelaide and Tourism Australia.
