Adelaide Restaurants

Adelaide Australia is more of a restaurant city than we found in Alice Springs. It has four primary restaurant districts, one on each side of the city, and supposedly, has more restaurants per capita than any other city in the country. We tried a few of them:

Chianti, a very popular, classic, white-table, Northern Italian restaurant at which we had four good dishes. We began with char-grilled octopus with barley and black currant salad and orange, chili dressing. The two main courses: slow-roasted rabbit with pancetta, port and sage; and roasted skate with butter and cauliflower and fontina crème. They were accompanied by roasted potatoes with olive oil, garlic, sea salt and rosemary, and a bottle of Italian wine—2013 Tenant de Garibaldi Vino Nobile de Montipulciano. While service in the packed restaurant was less than timely, they were very knowledgeable and professional. By far this was our best restaurant experience in Adelaide.

Ginza Miyako, a Japanese restaurant with a small selection of fresh fish where we had salmon, yellowfin, kingfish and Conger eel nigari; followed by two main courses: Tempura with king prawn, whiting, eel, carrots, pumpkin and red and green peppers with tempura sauce and green tea salt and yuzo chili mayo dipping dishes

Sean’s Kitchen, in the Casino complex, where we had lunch consisting of two fresh seafood dishes, both of which we enjoyed: grilled Freemantle octopus with Kipfler potatoes, Sicilian olives, chili and gremolata; and king crab legs with lemon butter. We had these with two glasses of wine:  a pretty good 2016 sauvignon blanc and a disappointing pinot grigio. But, although we enjoyed the food, we were much less excited by the very slow, unresponsive service.

Madame Hanoi, also in the Casino Complex, where we had a number of North Vietnamese small plates. These included fried baby squid with smoked chili and kaffir lime; softshell crab on brioche with coriander and chili lime mayo; crispy pork belly with herbs and hoisin sauce and mango salad. Our wine was a less than inspiring Crabtree Riesling from Adelaide Hills.

Oyster Bar, a small, no-frills place that sells, guess what? Oysters. The have one type of oyster each day that are very fresh and prepared for you upon order (versus places that have them pre-shucked). This day’s oysters were from Coffin Bay—plump, rich and creamy, but with little brininess or minerality. You can order oysters in several different ways: natural, with or without a sauce, or with caviar, smoked salmon or other toppings; or broiled with Worchester, garlic and salt, and a choice of toppings. We shared a couple dozen naturals and a dozen broiled with bacon. For our tastes,  the oysters did not stand up for eating raw and plain. But the broiled oysters with bacon were quite good. For wine, we choose a nice, crisp, grassy, 2016 Adelaide Hills sauvignon blanc from Landcross.

Adelaide Hotel

We stayed at the Adina Apartment Hotel. This was really a daily serviced apartment in an old and beautifully renovated building. The front desk is opened 24/7 and they also have an attached restaurant and bar and a lovely courtyard.  The unit was large with a small kitchen, good size living room, bathroom  and bedroom. It is very well located and nicely appointed. We booked a room with a washer dryer, although they also had a guest laundry that was convenient. It had a very comfortable bed and pillow. We would definitely stay here again.