Adelaide’s Best New Openings of 2023

Every single year the Broadsheet team puts our collective wallets and waistlines on the line to eat and drink our way around Adelaide, sampling venues as they open. We’ve pooled our findings to create comprehensive lists of the best new bars, best new cafes and best new restaurants, but if you’re feeling exceptionally time-poor as we battle our way through the silly season and can’t do a longer read, consider this your cheat sheet to the best new venues of 2023.

Adelaide’s Best New Restaurants of 2023

• Bar Nina, CBD: A 52-seat restaurant co-owned by Leonardo Loureiro of Basque by Leo fame, Bar Nina offers a broadly Spanish menu with a lean towards Basque cuisine.
• Four Sides, Hyde Park: This multifaceted spot from the Bistro Francais team serves a fusion menu of small plates and hearty mains. The one-page menu is brief but beautifully considered, with standouts including blue crab beignets with seaweed mayonnaise; smoked potato dumplings; and Murray Valley pork chop with bok choy and sesame miso.
• Kiin, CBD: This Thai fusion restaurant is a collaboration between sommelier David Wickwar, (Melbourne’s Vaporetto wine bar) and chef Ben Bertei (Longrain and Brisbane’s Same Same). The menu playfully crosses cuisines while staying true to the core tenets of Thai food – the right balance of salty, spicy, sweet and sour.
• La Louisiane, CBD: When the teams behind Nola and Shotgun Willie’s opened their moody subterranean French restaurant in July, their first move was to tap French-born chef Alexis Besseau (former head chef behind the highly successful Sydney bistro Restaurant Hubert) to helm the restaurant. Besseau focuses on classic brasserie dishes served on old-school blue-rimmed plates. Red meat lovers will be delighted by a ruby-hued steak tartare served with “pommes gaufrette”, a haute cuisine answer to waffle-cut chips, and a signature burger and fries (which, dare we say, might compete with Hubert’s cult cheeseburger).
• Longplay Bistro, CBD: The highly anticipated new bistro from the Clever Little Tailor team has been a long time coming. With a European bistro feel, a one-page menu and a pair of former Summertown Aristologist chefs in the kitchen, this Pirie Street spot has all the markings of an institution in the making.
• Patch, Stirling: In February, chef Andrew Davies (co-owner of Osteria Oggi and formerly of Press Food & Wine, Bread & Bone and Maybe Mae), his wife Belle Kha and two long-time friends from the wine industry, headed to the Hills to open a new restaurant that highlights slow living and simple dishes. The aim is simply to serve quality food in a relaxed environment where the dishes focus on flavour and texture, rather than shoehorning in as many elements as possible onto the plate.
• A Prayer for the Wild at Heart, CBD: An unpretentious neighbourhood brasserie (with a lengthy literary name), A Prayer for the Wild at Heart opened with a host of francophone talent including chef Stéphane Brizard (ex- Crafers Hotel) and naturally served simple French fare.
• Tiki’s Thai Cuisine, Semaphore Park: If you told us one of the best new restaurant openings in Adelaide would come from a first-time restaurant owner who didn’t know how to cook at the start of the year, we’d have laughed you out of the room, but Tiki’s Thai Cuisine is a wonderful surprise. The simple corner spot serves sumptuous Thai curries, soups and noodle dishes and the bao is being called one of the best in the western suburbs.
• Trak, Toorak Gardens: The team behind successful city bistro Herringbone and the laid-back Crafers Pizza Bar has opened its third venue. The 80-seat Mediterranean restaurant in Adelaide’s leafy eastern suburbs has a back-to-basics approach. Entrees include an escabeche of garfish and a smoked pork rillette with crispy fig and maple bread, while mains range from spaghetti vongole to grilled porterhouse and sticky beef short ribs.

Adelaide’s Best New Cafes of 2023

• Dante’s Deli, Glenelg: This tiny beachside cafe in Glenelg is inspired by the al fresco grab-and-go panino bars of Italy, serving panini packed with sopressa, fior di latte, tomato, peppers, mayo and basil, or mortadella, capocollo, provolone, pickled veg and pesto. Plus, a mushroom ragu toastie with provolone and shredded mozzarella.
• Fratelli Deli, Prospect: A trip to the US inspired a foursome of family and friends to open this Americana venue in Prospect, serving hearty two-hander subs in hero rolls and stuffed to the brim with pastrami and chicken with vodka sauce. Sandwiches are made to order and the team is happy to make substitutions.
• Our Boy Roy, Clarence Park: This colourful corner spot manages to squeeze in a coffee and sandwich bar, a buzzing 100-seat cafe, a delicatessen and a general store all under one roof. You might find a meatball and sugo panini, or a chunky deli meats sanga, as well as a bowl of breakfast gnocchi and a pillowy, thick and syrupy hotcake (singular). As for the coffee, owner Michael Cotton has an exclusive deal (within SA) with pioneering Sydney roaster Single O. Beyond the usual espresso options, you can enjoy batch-brew filter coffee via a self-serve tap.
• Spread Deli, Unley: A sister venue for Unley cocktail bar Dolly, Spread Deli was inspired by Melbourne’s Hector’s Deli and Sydney’s Continental Deli. The lunch menu runs long in paninis and toasties, while there’s also an Italian hoagie piled high with deli meats, giardiniera, chilli and mozzarella as well as a steak frites sandwich, which practically begs to be paired with a glass of wine.
• Susa, Mount Barker: Every single dish at sisters Taylah and Maddi Canny’s Mount Barker cafes comes with a breathtaking side: a gorgeous view over the Adelaide Hills. On the food front, expect wholesome dishes like mushroom ragu served with crispy enoki and beetroot relish; a banh mi brekkie waffle served with pork shoulder, pickled carrot and gochujang lime aioli; and a selection of loaded toasties too. Pastries and sourdough come courtesy of Lobethal-based baker Clara Cakes, and coffee is by De Groot.

Adelaide’s Best New Bakery of 2023

• Prove Patisserie, Stepney: Prove Patisserie has been supplying its coveted pastries to the city’s best cafes since it launched in late 2020. Now its luminous line-up of croissants, scrolls and seasonal danishes are available at its own shopfront in Stepney. Since relocating, the team has also started baking bread – 100 per cent sourdough plain, seeded and rye loaves, plus baguettes, ciabatta and specials like olive and rosemary fougasse – which has sold out every Saturday.

Adelaide’s Best New Gelateria of 2023

• Gelateca, McLaren Vale: Pizzateca ’s sweet new expansion is helmed by Andrea Calabrese. Calabrese has been making gelato for most of his life – and his love for it is infectious.

Adelaide’s Best New Bars of 2023

• Alt Bar, Hyde Park: Hyde Park local Adam Robinson leapt at the opportunity to open a bar on King William Road. There’s a 200-strong wine list touching on traditional and new-age drops, and maniacally moreish bar snacks.
• Dolly, Unley: Dolly, by the same team that’s behind Bar Lune, is pouring creative cocktails alongside approachable wines, mostly from local producers. Perch at the swanky concrete bar for a creative cocktail and a serve of crab soldiers topped with chilli crisp and grated bottarga. It’s a sleek and open space, whether you’re after a quiet midweek wine or a cocktail-fuelled Saturday night.
• East End Cellars, Norwood Green: After 20 years trading at Vardon Avenue, the Adelaide wine bar-bottle shop has expanded to Norwood Green with an extended menu from chef Josh Lansley (former sous-chef at Osteria Oggi and head chef at Press Food & Wine) that includes a Ligurian focaccia sandwich, crispy potato mille-feuille with raw beef and Murray cod caviar, and a curried prawn sandwich. More than 600 bottles are available to take home – or drink there for $20 corkage.
• El Camino, Hahndorf: New Mexico, USA, inspired Kat Romeo and Jon Di Pinto (Shotgun Willie’s, Memphis Slim’s and Cry Baby) to create their new Hahndorf bar. The desert-inspired spot – with cacti and pueblo-style walls – serves tacos, charcoal-grilled corn and nachos. Mexican beers and soft drinks line the fridges, and tequila is the feature of every cocktail served.
• Fu Cocktail Bar, North Adelaide: This intimate spot boasts an exceptional wine list. It’s divided into playful categories like “Grumpy and Serious”, “Hangry” (wines to snack alongside) and “Accountants” (the classics), and enticing cocktails.
• Nearly, CBD: Alex Glastonbury, a long-time bartender at Udaberri, has teamed up with Stem co-owners Lachlan Farmer and Tom Paxton, illustrator Cécile Gariépy and designer Stephen Roy to open this cosy wine bar. The outdoor tables, plus the occasional dinner pop-up, draw a crowd come golden hour while, inside, irregularly shaped tables share the space with a curved bar that runs the length of the venue. The largely local drinks list includes drops from Travis Tausend, Gentle Folk and Ochota Barrels. Beers are on tap and there’s also bottomless coffee and simple snacks.
• Thirsty Tiger, CBD: The upstairs bar (above sibling bar 99 Gang Social) serves party-starting cocktails, shooters, cake and Japanese beers, as well as a brunch menu that has proved the perfect Sunday morning recovery meal.
• Yellow Matter, Brooklyn Park: What started as plans for a neighbourhood wine bar out the front of much-loved Richmond cafe Karma & Crow has morphed into a microbrewery, restaurant and bar in Brooklyn Park. Former head brewer at Melbourne’s Bodriggy Brewing Co Tristan Barlow brews beers that range from a “really bright and summery Berliner Weisse through to a super smooth and chocolatey stout”. There’s also a completely vegetarian pizza, an extensive non-alcoholic list, a pool table and dog-friendly policy.

And to find out what we loved eating, check out our team's favourite drinks and dishes of the year.