Adelaide Eating

October 1998

Adelaide is a city which takes its food very seriously The Central Market is busy and well used by the city's gourmets. People enjoy cooking and eating well at home, a fact which drives the restaurateurs to distraction. It certainly keeps prices down.

So at the top end of the market the field of established and reliable places is very slim. In the city centre there's the Hilton's Grange restaurant, where the 'Emperor' Cheong Liew holds court and The Botanic Dining Room [now closed 2000] with chef Michael Voumard.

Cheong has become the stuff of legends. He exudes both a sense of culinary tradition making him the seemingly undisputed heir to dynasties of Chinese food wisdom and a cunning wizardry that enables him to transform, combine and multiply ingredients. His inventiveness seems to hold no bounds with dishes combining the skills of Greek, Indian, Malaysian and French cooking within the practical boundaries of the Australian kitchen. Who else could make bouillabaisse into a custard and serve it successfully with fried fish and anchovy butter or put a ragout of crocodile and ostrich into a spaghetti timbale? But in Adelaide, the most that can be charged for all this magic is $75 for his six course banquet (you can limit yourself to just three dishes for $58 but then you won't be able to resist coming back next day for another three).

However if you are in town for Cheong's 'Long Table' at The Grange at the beginning of this month then you can taste an array of 16 of his dishes accompanied by Tim Knappstein wines for $95. This is a once a year special occasion not to be missed.

Opposite the gardens, at Botanic Dining Room (now closed), with an a la carte menu for dinners Tuesday-Saturday and for one lunch only on Friday. Dishes here include Jerusalem artichoke and grilled fennel soup with chorizo for $9.50, a classic gratin of oysters florentine $12, Thai influenced quail with nahm jim $10.50 and miang of air dried pork with green mango $12.50. Main courses are very generous, the most expensive being a char grilled fillet of beef for $20 (the price of entrees in Melbourne's equivalent restaurants). There's a serious and well priced wine list including a fair representation of local wines. This is an essential part of any dining in Adelaide which is close to so many of the country's biggest and best known vineyards.

One of the closest vineyards to the inner city is Penfold's Magill Estate which is home to one of South Australia's most prestigious restaurants. Chef Michael Carroll, originally from Brisbane, worked with some of Sydney's leading chefs before spending two years at Michelin starred restaurants in Europe. His Magill Estate menus are classically based with the emphasis as he explains, "on simplicity, the secret of a great culinary experience." Michael's 'simple' dishes include Venison with Sauce Poivrade, Jambonette of Barossa Valley Chicken , Atlantic Salmon with salsify and mustard seed sauce and Pigeon 'Pot au Feu'. There's also carpaccio and risotto and more Italian influenced dishes in summer with French winter dishes. In the 16 months he has been at Magill Estate he has re-trained a staff of five cooks in basic European techniques. "I found qualified chefs who could do Asian dishes but not the basics of classic cuisine," he said. Michael is now very pleased with his team, particularly the latest, Richard Le Deueff a French pastry chef who has come to the area to be with his wife who is doing a wine course at Chapel Hill vineyard in McLaren Vale. (2000 UPDATE: Richard Le Deueff & Michael Carroll left Magill Estate at the beginning of 1999, replaced by Head Chef Chris Matuhina).

One of the least well kept secrets around Adelaide is the pizza restaurant which is only open two nights. Russell's Pizza Cottage at Willunga traded just Fridays for three and a half years. Chef/owner Russell Jeavons has now conceded to market forces and as of last month started opening Saturdays. The rest of the week, this chef, philosopher and self taught baker, will cater for private functions in the ballroom or cottage at 13 High Street Willunga (08 8556 2571) For someone who "never wanted a restaurant" Russell has certainly got one now. But it's not just the quality of his pizza dough, slow cooked desserts and delicious Mediterranean style salads which bring huge numbers of families, gourmets and visitors out to Willunga, it's the special style of the place. You can eat at a long table in the kitchen and watch it all happening or in the ballroom which, is literally that, it's a dancing room. People bring their own music and really strut their stuff. This winter, a group of elegantly black dressed Melburnians, came for a tango night to Russells. They brought the music, the clothes and the tango expertise. They shared the space with "family people in their woollies, a 21st birthday party and a school group who watched happily for a while but then I changed the music to give them a go too." This is all part of the role which Russell enjoys playing out front, orchestrating the evening and keeping the fun level up. It seems to work and competing music fans don't get into fights due no doubt to the good humoured informality of the place. It is, Russell explains, " a very Australian place, one which is not of me, but of the region and of its history."

And what a region the McLaren Vale is. Just nearby are beaches and excellent vineyards and more good eating. One of the best known and oldest is the Salopian Inn where Pip Forrester has developed many dishes using the local produce as well as marketing harissa, dukkah and McLaren Vale Olive Oil, which can all be purchased at the restaurant as well as by mail order from interstate. The Salopian Inn, cnr McMurtrie & Willunga Rds, 08 8323 8769 .

But the best regional eating and finest setting is D'Arry's Verandah where chef Andrew Davies is turning out exquisite classical food. This is not a drop in place for a snack and a glass of wine, it's a place for very fine eating and a healthy appetite. The menu offers a good range of choices at a set price of $60 for three courses, including amuse guele and several desserts. This menu is available Wednesday through to Sunday for lunch and dinner on Friday and Saturday nights. The rest of the week Andrew, caters for functions at Darry's Verandah from his Pied a Terre catering company. At the beginning of last month, Andrew and Luke took over the lease of the restaurant themselves, previously they had been employed by the D'Arenberg vineyard. One change which they will make will be to broaden the wine list to include other local wines as well as the finest from D'Arenberg. You need to book here up to 6 weeks in advance, phone 08 8323 8423 and for catering, ring 0414 260181.

Back in Adelaide, there are simpler places particularly around the Central Market, in Gouger Street, the tiny Ying Chow is a favourite at 114, New Saigon at 163 and the Korean, Sun My $5. Recently opened in nearby Field Street is Genki owned by Shozo Ikeda of the well respected Himeji Japanese Restaurant (61 O'Connell Street). Himeji is known for its traditional Japanese food served by girls in kimonos, its sushi bar, private rooms and section for Japanese style seating. Genki is set up as a simple, low priced Western cafe with teshoku style food, main course prices (from $9.80-13.80) include miso soup, rice salad, pickles and Japanese tea. It's the sort of place you'd see in the back streets of Japan and seems to have caught Adelaide's imagination. It was soon full every day shortly after opening at 9 Field Street.

Other good eating in Adelaide is the Sunday Yum Cha at the Treasure Palace in Unley Road, very fine Italian food, in North Adelaide at Chibo, a really pleasant spot with a bright lively cafe front, a good range of antipasto on display, an interesting list of primi and secondi , a courtyard for the summer, good coffee and a friendly open atmosphere. Nearby in O'Connell St, Casuarina has good Malaysian food and the best fish head laksa in town.

Combine culture with eating at the Art Gallery cafe on North Terrace.There are no entry charges (only charges for special exhibitions) so you can just come and sit in the very pleasant, light, glass enclosed room where Cath Kerry (a well known caterer and formerly chef of Bridgewater Mill) provides a non-institutional lunch menu ranging from Tunisian Brik $8.50, Beef in Coopers Stout $13 or Spiced seafood with lemon grass $14.50. There are always fresh soups, salads, freshly baked bread rolls and interesting desserts.

The other hot news is that Maggie Beer (retired from the award winning Pheasant Farm) has opened a new restaurant last month. Not just Maggie, but the entire Beer family are involved in Charlick's Feed Store in Ebenezer Place (off Rundle St, now closed) which previously housed the Red Ochre Grill. Maggie and partner Duncan Miller (formerly manager of the Universal Wine Bar) decided to give their new restaurant a proper "sense of place" and so have restored the building's original name. It was at the Feed Store that Maggie recalls buying her first echallots for planting about a dozen years ago. Since then Maggie has become even more famous with her books, produce and preserves, activities which she will continue. So it is up to daughers Saskia (who raises the wonderful Barossa Valley chooks) and youngest daughter Eliette to assist in managing the kitchen and front of house. According to Maggie, Charlick's Feed Store will offer "a true Australian table, this was a produce store and I'm a produce driven cook." Phone 8223 7566

First published in The Australian Way, October 1998

See also Angus Trumble's series of walks around Adelaide and Andrew Corrigan on South Australian wine regions