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Enjoy the bounty that Adelaide, and its verdant surrounds, has to o!er.

GREEN&PLEASANT

LAND

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From above, a patchwork of golden-straw and earth-brown land, criss-crossed by roads that run forever to each compass point, defines the area surrounding Adelaide. If Colonel William Light had had this perspective from an aeroplane window, his job

as the first surveyor general of the colony of South Australia would’ve been easily done, a pleasant stroll into the history books. Arriving in 1836 to allocate land pre-sold in London, and despite a lack of staff and transport, within months he’d laid out 1042 acres – sold for a pound an acre – and also designed the city’s layout, allocating extensive parks to prevent the problem of unclean air that plagued some European cities.

You can admire his handiwork as the plane descends, magnifying in on a tidy grid of suburban streets lined with settler- and colonial-era cottages, villas, bungalows and their swathes of corrugated-iron roofs. On the ground you can walk the wide city streets, past sturdy public buildings and banks built with arm-length-deep sandstone, and handsome colonial edifices with their generous verandahs and wrought-iron balconies.

As the first free-settled state in Australia, there was no shortage of brave-new-world migrants seeking opportunity and freedom in Adelaide. And that hasn’t changed. From the first colonials and northern Europeans, there followed Greeks and Italians, the next wave from Vietnam, then the Middle East and, more recently, an influx of East African and Uyghur people. These nationalities and many others have woven their unique cultures and cuisines into the tasty tapestry that

Opposite page: Palms lead the way to Seppeltsfield. This page, clockwise from above: Street art; Smelly Cheese in Adelaide Central Market; the cellar door at Penfolds Magill Estate.

Left: Gourmet pies at Market Shed. Right: Lucias Fine Foods. Opposite page: Outdoor table at Tscharke, Barossa.

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informs a vibrant and constantly evolving food scene. And with it goes the happy partnering of wine – with seven wine regions and about 200 cellar doors within an hour’s drive, Adelaide is the wine capital of Australia. No longer playing bridesmaid to Melbourne and Sydney, Adelaide is now valued for its unique experiences, the type that can’t be found or replicated elsewhere. With nearly 180 years of settlement, there’s richness to draw from and depth that’s being added to in the food and wine industries by a new set of operators.

NEW GENERATIONWith their well-established food and wine culture, Adelaideans are an informed bunch keen for new experiences. Their appetites are being sated by a new wave of talented operators who are unabashedly doing their own thing. Invigorating the bar-dining scene, the recent relaxing of liquor licensing laws has enlivened formerly underutilised parts of the city. There’s a new energy in historic enclaves such as Leigh and Peel streets, where, since becoming traffic-free, new and old establishments can comfortably expand outside and make the most of the city’s hot, dry climate. Rigoni’s (rigonis.com.au), a local Italian institution since 1979, now has new neighbours on Leigh Street such as Udaberri (udaberri.com.au), which has become a hit for its Basque-inspired pintxos-style food. The latest addition to the street is Pink Moon Saloon (pinkmoonsaloon.com.au), a bar-eatery contained in two whimsical timber cabins tucked between old brick buildings in a four-metre-wide former bin-service alley.

One along on Peel Street is Peel St (peelst.com.au), headed by chef

Jordan Theodoros whose restaurant is testament to his much-loved food served with flair but without pretension. Also on Peel is Clever Little Tailor (cleverlittletailor.com.au), a small bar known for its refined cocktails, craft beer and top-shelf liquor selection.

Head in any direction from there and you’ll find plenty more specialties on offer. An easy stroll away is Thrift Shop (thriftbar.com.au), which serves only Australian spirits, wine and beer, Proof Bar (proof-bar.com) for sophisticated cocktails and humble toasties, La Buvette (labuvettedrinkery.com) for an aperitif and French bites and Bibliotheca (bibliotheca.com.au) for quality spirits, books and poetry nights.

Bistro Dom (bistrodom.com.au) on Waymouth Street is one of the city’s restaurants that proudly, passionately and deftly puts the best of South Australian on a plate. On Rundle Street, you’ll find Orana (restaurantorana.com) where Jock Zonfrillo, a chef of Scottish and Italian heritage, has found his spiritual home in Australia. With his Michelin pedigree, the former executive chef of Magill Estate (see Local Legend) makes bold and accomplished moves in his respect for indigenous ingredients with his degustation-only menu.

Nearby is the tranquil Ebenezer Place, with the popular Hey Jupiter (facebook.com/heyjupitercafe) and Afghani restaurant Kutchi Deli Parwana (kutchi.com.au), and Vardon Avenue, which is home to East End Cellars (eastendcellars.com.au) – one of the best wine merchants in town – and Mother Vine (mothervine.com.au), where you can imbibe selected wines from South Australia and further afield.

In perfect synergy with the buzzing food scene is a thrilling new wave of creativity in the wine industry. There’s a sense of people breaking out

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STAY To drink in the beauty of the Barossa, The Louise offers a superb vantage point from its Marananga hilltop site. Jim and Helen Carreker fell in love with the Barossa, and they relocated from their San Francisco Bay base to pour their passion for the finer things into the property they bought in 2005. As well as superb boutique accommodation, The Louise has become renowned for its restaurant, Appellation, and its award-winning catalogued, indexed 500-plus wine list – be prepared to ignore your dining companion as you become absorbed in its many pages. Appellation’s executive chef, Ryan Edwards, is a passionate and well-connected locavore who uses his own kitchen garden as a guide – “if it grows well here we can use it”. The fine-dining restaurant also plays host to “locals’ night” on Tuesdays when the chefs serve three courses to a house full of laid-back locals and lucky visitors. thelouise.com.au

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LOCAL LEGENDOnly a 15-minute drive from the central city is Penfolds Magill Estate (penfolds.com), which gives a fascinating insight into the region’s wine history and brings it right up to date with two superb restaurants, a cellar door, tasting rooms and tours of the vast old drives (cellars). What started out in 1844 with grapes grown for medicinal tonics has become one of the world’s most famous wine labels. Soon after Dr Christopher Penfold and his wife Mary bought 200ha of land in the Adelaide foothills for £1200, they planted granache from cuttings taken in the south of France. They called their vineyard the Magill Estate and built a charming stone cottage, which they named The Grange, for Mary’s hometown in England. A modern-day marketing guru couldn’t have come up with a better name – Grange has become Australia’s most celebrated wine brand.

Penfolds is a phenomenal story of a young couple – the doctor was 33 when he arrived – their pioneering tenacity and the people who joined them on the journey, such as Max Schubert, who started out as a messenger boy with Penfolds at the age of 15 and went on to become their world-famous chief winemaker.

Today, the Penfolds Magill Estate is open for tastings and tours and has the highly regarded fine-dining Restaurant and the more casual Kitchen – both bring local ingredients to the fore and take in views across the estate.

Top: Historic building at Penfolds Magill Estate. Below: Deliciousness courtesy of Fino.

Left: Fresh prodice from Market Shed. Right: A totem pole forms part of the extensive art collection at The Louise.

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and Fiona Sappenbergh, is a great sit-down addition to the market that teems with shoppers perusing stalls laden with fresh produce in rude health. Brimming with ingredients from the surrounding vendors, the huge paella dish at Comida is an instant drawcard.

Cheese lovers can find out what local and regional producers are up to at the specialty shop Say Cheese, while the Smelly Cheese shop next door is the place to go for funky fromage sourced from local and international makers. For a taste of Kangaroo Island, there’s the eponymous store that sells some of the gourmet and boutique food produced on the nearby outpost with a population of less than 4500.

Every vendor at the market – and there are more than 80 specialist stores – has a story to tell of regionality, of generations refining the family business, of new people adding a fresh perspective.

Adelaideans love a market and to ensure they barely go a day without one, Market Shed on Holland (1 Holland St), which specialises in organic fare and is a relaxed brunch and lunch destination, fills the fresh-produce gap on a Sunday.

BAROSSAFan out in almost any direction from Adelaide and you’ll be in wine country – the Adelaide Hills, Clare Valley, McLaren Vale, Langhorne Creek, Fleurieu Peninsula, Limestone Coast, across Investigator Strait to Kangaroo Island, Eden Valley or the Barossa. Less than an hour’s drive from Adelaide and with more than 80 cellar doors to visit, I headed northeast to Barossa, travelling through the Adelaide Plains, past agricultural land developed by the Italians, previously ignored by the early

to do exactly what they want and a collaborative spirit that’s further stoking the creative fires. With the savvy sommelier network that’s in touch with what’s happening in the region, new wines are always being introduced to restaurants and bars. This vibrant scene has proved compelling to big-name food entrepreneurs including Sean Connolly, who continues his philosophy of working with local producers at Sean’s Kitchen (adelaidecasino.com.au), and Jamie Oliver, who has expanded his mega brand with Jamie’s Italian (jamieoliver.com/italian).

A TASTE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIAAt the beating heart of Adelaide and its fascinating aggregation of cultures is the Central Market. Surrounded by food and wine producers, the paddock-to-plate deal is as real in the city as it has always been. The produce is not just good, it’s excellent. First established in 1869, the market originally opened two days a week for farmer-growers to sell their produce direct to the public. The building that stands today was opened in 1900 and the market now runs from Tuesday to Saturday. Take a tour (centralmarkettour.com.au), join a cooking class (adelaidecentralmarket.com.au) or quiz stallholders to uncover the old, new and unfolding stories found here. Or eat up the history at destinations such as Lucias (facebook.com/LuciasFineFoods), the first pasta bar to open in the city. The menu has remained unchanged by the Bugeja family since 1957 and the cafe has steadfastly served as one of Adelaide’s great egalitarian meeting places. What has evolved is an eatery and fine-food purveyor that have opened alongside Lucias by new generations of the family.

Comida (comidacateringco.com), the Spanish-style eatery run by Brad

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to 6pm daily and late Fridays, a popular evening with the locals.Big, small and medium-sized wineries are all part of the Barossa

mosaic, with sub regions to explore and specialty operators to discover. If biodynamic wine is your thing, Kalleske (kalleske.com) is the local leader. Into their seventh generation as winemakers, the family’s carefully crafted wines are exported worldwide. The cellar door of the award-winning winery is in the former post office and general store in the village of Greenock.

Krondorf Road has an impressive line-up of established names, including Charles Melton, Rockford and Grant Burge – or Charlie, Rocky and Burge-y, as these statesmen of the Barossa are known along the road. Recognising the value of shiraz and grenache vines, which growers were being paid to pull out by the government in the 1980s, Charlie was instrumental in ensuring his remained intact and together the trio owns a valuable chunk of land and vines they intend on preserving.

At the other end of the spectrum, husband-and-wife team Susan Yelland and Michael Papps are creating their own young-winemaker story, without the generational history that many local brands boast. The Yelland & Papps (yellandandpapps.com) cellar door won Best Cellar Door 2015 and Gourmet Traveller Best Tasting Experience in 2014, and the atmosphere of hand-hewn charm makes you reluctant to leave. New blood aside, it’s hard to escape the fascinating history of the Barossa, and Seppeltsfield (seppeltsfield.com.au), established in 1851, has it in abundance. The Seppelts – former tobacco growers – have made their mark on Barossa wine and the landscape. You can’t miss the dozens of towering palms that line the road to the winery and the family mausoleum on the hill. The vast estate is being revitalised with artists and artisans in residence, such as a cooper (barrel maker) and the knife maker Barry Gardner, a moustachioed character formerly of Ponsonby, Auckland, whose knife-making workshops are booked out until 2017. And there’s Fino, the restaurant in the original 1900s bottling hall, which is a must-visit for its stand-out cuisine, top-notch sherry list and wine.STORY & PHOTOGRAPHS JO BATES

settlers, and past crops grown by the Vietnamese on land the Italians weren’t interested in. As well as Barossa’s fertile soil, it was freedom from religious persecution that drew the first settlers, Lutherans, many from Prussian Silesia, in the 1840s. Despite ongoing traditions such as brass bands and a clutch of words in use from the old Barossa-Deutsch dialect that developed here, life seems to have taken on a more Tuscan flavour. The scenery is loaded with the charm of meandering vines and old stone buildings and the air rich with the scent of the good life.

The Lutherans established self-sustaining farms and planted the first vines, some of which are now 170 years old and among the oldest in the world, having been spared phylloxera, the disease that ran rampant in Europe. Their roots run deep, bearing fruit that reveals unique Barossan terroir stories. There’s a lot to take in, and drink, so don’t cheat yourself with a day or overnight trip. With a long lunch in between, you could cover three cellar doors in a day, giving yourself time to linger when you feel like it. Do some planning to tailor and refine what you want to explore, or stop in at the Barossa Visitor Information Centre in Tanunda, one of a clutch of small towns in the area. Self-drive or plan your own bike tour – Barossa Bike Hire (barossabikehire.com.au) delivers bikes (electric as well) to your accommodation.

Bringing together more than a handful of boutique labels, a great place to start sampling is Artisans of Barossa (artisansofbarossa.com), which was opened in 2006 by seven winemakers who produce in small quantities – from 1500 to 5000 cases, compared to the big guns who can do about million. As well as tasting small-batch wines at the cellar door, you’ll get informed insights on the winemakers, their career histories and wines.

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Above: Bistro Dom restaurant, Adelaide.

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