At Angry Penguin, Dinner Comes With a Side of Art History

The first thing diners see when they enter Angry Penguin isn’t the menu. It’s Sidney Nolan’s tortured 1973 portrait of the fictional poet Ern Malley, which hangs at the entrance to the restaurant, which opened as part of the Adelaide Festival Centre’s $55 million redevelopment.

“It’s a work that immediately captures your attention,” says Adelaide Festival Centre CEO Kate Gould. “There’s a wonderful sense of movement and imagination in it, but also a distinctly Australian quality that Sidney Nolan made his own.”

On loan from the Art Gallery of South Australia, the painting depicts the invented subject of a famed hoax and subsequent obscenity trial that was a media sensation of 1940s Adelaide. At the centre of the Ern Malley hoax was the modernist literary magazine Angry Penguins and the associated art movement that, as Gould says, “challenged conventions and encouraged people to think differently about art, literature and culture”.

The venue pays tribute to those cultural pioneers with a display of works drawn from the Festival Centre’s collection, including two commemorative prints by German artist Otto Hajek, whose Adelaide Urban Iconograph sculpture stood in the Festival Centre Plaza for 40 years. More subtle touches include a Ralph Steadman-esque font based on the handwriting of Angry Penguins editor Max Harris, whose favourite tipple – calvados – can also be found behind the bar.

Studio Nine Architects’ design incorporates plush red carpets, bespoke furniture by local designers Andrew Carvolth and Jon Goulder and a colour palette drawn from Nolan’s painting to create an appropriately theatrical atmosphere.

Executive chef Alex Katsman, who previously helmed kitchens at Adelaide’s Sofitel and Marriott hotels, matches that energy with a European-influenced menu that is “about creating nostalgic moments for our guests”, he says. In practice, that means classic dishes like a prawn cocktail and well-sauced coq au vin, but there’s also room for more sprightly dishes like roasted brussels sprouts with tahini, hot honey and lashings of freshly grated Parmigiano.

Theatrical desserts like the decadent dark chocolate, raspberry and gold Velvet Rouge take inspiration from the Festival Centre’s performance calendar, and the exclusively South Australian wine list features plenty of smaller producers alongside more established names (the $135 bottle of Basket Press is a steal).

While the restaurant will be open whenever there is a performance, the ultimate aim is for it to be a standalone drawcard. “The Festival Centre has always been a destination for performance,” says Studio Nine Architects principal and lead interior designer Jaana Bithell. “This project was about making it just as much a destination for dining, creating a restaurant people would choose to visit regardless of whether they had theatre tickets.”

Angry Penguin

King William Road, Adelaide

(08) 8216 8934

Hours:

Wed to Sat midday–2:30pm & 5pm–late

(Open Sun to Tues for pre-show dining, when there is a performance that night.)

www.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au/your-visit/eat-drink/angry-penguin

@angrypenguinrestaurant