Light Up Your Weekend With This Two-Day Itinerary for Illuminate Adelaide

Illuminate Adelaide is back, and this year’s festival program is packed. From light shows and music events to performance, film and visual art, it all unfolds from July 1 to 19. And that’s just the festival itself. Whether you’re visiting from interstate or looking for a reason to rediscover the city you know and love, here’s a two-day itinerary to help you make the most of this immersive winter festival – with plenty of excellent food and drink options along the way.

Day one

Drop your bags and head straight to Part Time Lover for lunch (or a late brekkie if you get in early). Don’t look past the fried corn ribs with chilli, lime and mayo, or the salt-and-pepper bug roll paired with a glass of pinot noir from the Adelaide Hills. 

After checking into your hotel – the Bordeaux-inspired Sofitel Adelaide is always a good choice – it’s time to hit the town. City Lights returns bigger than ever and completely free, transforming Adelaide’s streets and parklands into a winter wonderland of large-scale installations and projections. Then make your way to Adelaide Botanic Garden for Night Visions, where a parallel world of immersive light displays take over the gardens after dark.

For a dinner worth planning your trip around, Ocean to Plate brings the flavours of the South Australian coastline to the centre of the city from July 10 to 11. This immersive four-course experience showcases the region’s best local produce, with 97 per cent of the menu sourced from sustainable South Australian artisans. As light, sound and flavour converge, guests are placed on the shoreline through evocative projections and evolving soundscapes inspired by coastal South Australia – rugged, untameable and wild.

When it comes to dinner options within walking distance, you’re spoiled for choice thanks to Illuminate’s Host program partnering with over 30 restaurants, bars and eateries across the city. Paper Tiger and Tarantino’s are great options in the city’s east end, or you can wander west to Fugazzi for some of the yummiest pasta in town.

After dinner, make a pit stop at East End Cellars for one of the most impressive wine selections in the city before heading to Adelaide Zoo for Universal Kingdom: Ice Age. Expect an incredible spectacle combining puppetry, light and sound that’ll transport you into a prehistoric time when woolly mammoths, dinosaurs and sabretooth cats roamed the land. If you’ve got kids with you, this one will truly blow their minds.

Day two

Awake from your slumber with a cup of joe and plate of Turkish eggs at Peter Rabbit or, if you’re not afraid of decision paralysis, head to Adelaide Central Market, where the options are endless. You can’t go wrong at The Big Table (try and find a fatter slice of toast, we’ll wait) or the iconic Lucia’s with its equally iconic foamy cappuccinos.

Refuelled and caffeinated, it’s Illuminate Adelaide time. Dive into Digital Abyss, a digital journey through the ocean floor by Miguel Chevalier, then move through Augmented Games  at Adelaide Showground, a playful interactive zone where your body becomes the controller across eight life-sized games. Finish at the Art Gallery of South Australia for Illuminate @ AGSA and explore The Mulka Project’s Rarrirarri, an immersive audiovisual installation that animates the late Yolŋu artist Mulkuṉ Wirrpanda’s botanical, animal and spiritual designs, honouring her legacy through contemporary First Nations art, soundscapes and family-led storytelling.

As the city lights up for the evening, make your way to 2KW Bar and Restaurant for some of the best rooftop views – and cocktails – in town, with a front-row seat to the City Lights takeover of Government House below. Pair an East End Hold-Up (vodka, Aperol, pineapple, passionfruit and lime) with Hervey Bay scallop ceviche, charcuterie from Parma Handcrafted Cured Meat, and a range of pizzas before calling it a night.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Illuminate Adelaide.