From the city to the country to the sea – South Australia’s best new restaurants deliver
From the city to the country, SA dining continues to punch above its weight. Discover the state’s best new eateries as revealed in The Australian Weekend Magazine Hot 50 Restaurants issue.
In Adelaide, venues like Latteria Bar and Station Road are redefining the city’s dining landscape with bold flavours and inventive menus.
Meanwhile, the Clare Valley’s Barrel House at Skillogalee and McLaren Vale’s Maxwell Fine Dining offer immersive experiences that highlight their region’s finest ingredients.
Welcome to our list of the ‘hottest’ dining destinations in South Australia, as featured in the Hot 50 Restaurants issue of The Weekend Australian Magazine.
Each restaurant on this list brings something special to the table, from the Venetian-inspired dishes at Osteria Polpo to the seasonal Maltese influences at Staguni.
Top South Australia Restaurants
Latteria Bar, Adelaide
There’s a Brady Bunch feel to the fit-out at this high-shine retro-style bar on Hutt Street. The walls are lined with records, the lounge area is semi-sunken and the mustard, baby blue, olive and crimson colour scheme evokes Marcia at her coolest. The food and drinks, however, are 100 per cent now. You might nibble on a neat little crab bun glammed up with barbecue corn and white pepper, or go big with a plate of house-made casarecce with ‘nduja and octopus. On the cocktail front, “The Best Cosmo Ever” makes a solid effort to live up to its name, while the wine list plays resolutely in the fun and funky space.
The Barrel House at Skillogalee, Clare Valley
While their rustic old cottage restaurant undergoes a facelift, the kitchen crew at Clare Valley icon Skillogalee have decamped to a brand new barrel hall on another part of the property to keep the good times going. Chef Dan Moss and his team have streamlined, offering a three-course prix fixe lunch ($69) that changes weekly and delivers a deft blend of the contemporary (crumbed leather jacket cheeks) and the classic (shepherd’s pie). Bounded on one side by the towering gums of the Skilly Hills, and a spectacularly contoured vineyard on the other, this is proper long-lunch country.
skillogalee.com.au/barrel-house
Staguni, Marananga
There’s a fair chance the ghosts of countless mettwurst sandwiches still haunt the old schoolhouse in the German-leaning Barossa parish of Marananga – but Clare Falzon is doing her darndest to dispel them. After a stint at nearby Hentley Farm, Falzon has gently reimagined the old schoolhouse into a restaurant with seasonality and simplicity at its core. The name Staguni is Maltese for “seasons” and Falzon draws on her own lineage from that island for a culinary offering that feels right at home in the Barossa. Go for the $90 set menu or pick from dishes including mussels with gorgonzola and white wine sauce, and raw pink snapper with nashi pear, pink peppercorn and pickled shallot.
Botanic Lodge, Adelaide
Not to be confused with the grand Restaurant Botanic, which shares its address inside the Adelaide Botanic Garden, Botanic Lodge is a cafe-style restaurant overlooking the lake, where diners are encouraged to drop in for a coffee and vanilla slice, or stay for a full lunch or dinner. Chef Tom Tilbury’s menu takes some of its inspiration from the surrounding gardens – you might see a steak flavoured with paperbark and dorrigo pepper, for example – but there’s also plenty of old-fashioned, Country Women’s Association-style nostalgia, found in dishes like lamington with quandong jam and soft-serve Golden Gaytime.
Station Road, Adelaide
When it comes to exceptional produce Adelaide arguably has an edge on its fellow capitals, thanks to the easy accessibility of farmlands and fisheries right on its doorstep. Station Road is one of the many restaurants in Adelaide making use of that bounty, serving fish that’s been pulled from the water the day it hits your plate, or vegetables that have arrived in the kitchen straight from the farm. The menu is French and Asian-influenced – think comté gougères with smoked bay leaf, or Beachport octopus with coriander and corn. The cocktails by celebrated bartender Saskia Lopes are also a huge drawcard.
Osteria Polpo, Adelaide
Adelaide’s Osteria Polpo is all about the lagoon cuisine of Venice. That might look like a generous prawn risotto, or baccala conso – a tender salted cod on a bed of potatoes and olives. A true Venetian restaurant would have its licence revoked if it didn’t serve cicchetti – tiny bites of drink-friendly snacks, often served on bread – and they are available to order with a spritz or a soave at any time of the day. The Veneto Fried Chicken, with its side of fragrant peverada sauce, is also a playful nod to the region.
Maxwell Fine Dining, McLaren Vale
From the restaurant near the top of the hill on Oliver’s Road, McLaren Vale, chefs Matt Rodgers and Fabian Lehmann can see the source of just about everything that hits their tables: the waters of Gulf St Vincent, the food bowl that is the Fleurieu Peninsula and the riches of the Adelaide Hills. Not to mention the vineyards operated by the Maxwell family. It all comes together with exquisite precision in an intricate tasting menu ($225 long/$180 short) offered across three lunches (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and dinner (Saturday). Minimalist menu writing – chicken, leek, garum or scallop, chawanmushi, pea – undersells dishes that over-deliver on clarity of conception, skilful execution and exquisite balance.
Thelma, Adelaide Hills
Thelma is like a rock ‘n’ roll supergroup, a coming-together of disparate and well-travelled talents to create something special in the Adelaide Hills. This simple yet soulful place puts produce and provenance at the heart of all it does. Tom Campbell was behind the much mourned Hills hotspot The Summertown Aristologist, while Olivia Moore re-wrote the winebar rules at Loc and James Spreadbury brings not only 12 years as Director of Service at Copenhagen’s Noma, but also a green-thumbed brother whose nearby farm provides much of what shapes the menu of dishes such as “broccoli leaf dolma with charcuterie offcuts” and “nannygai with leek and bone sauce”. Together they’ve created something well worth a run to the Hills.
View the Hot 50 FULL LIST here.
To discover the best new restaurants in NSW click here
To discover the best new restaurants in Queensland click here
To discover the best new restaurants in Victoria click here
To discover the best new restaurants in Tasmania click here
To discover the best new restaurants in Western Australia click here
Australia’s Hot 50 Restaurants has been compiled for The Australian Weekend Magazine by Elizabeth Meryment, with additional submissions from Alexandra Carlton, Lara Picone, Nick Ryan and Max Brearly.
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