Justin James Is Opening Two New Bars in a 156-Year-Old Adelaide Hills Church

Justin James is doing it all.

In November last year, it was announced that the former Restaurant Botanic chef would be opening Restaurant Aptos in a 156-year-old church this winter.

Yesterday he announced two new bars – Bar Cruz and Bar Mary – will join the 14-seater degustation diner.

His motivation for the new openings was twofold. Firstly, the church is big, so he’s motivated to get the most out of the space, and secondly, he wants to be a part of the Hills community.

“Restaurant Aptos is the sort of thing where you need some time put aside and you need some cash put aside,” James tells Broadsheet. “But I was like, ‘It’d be great to be part of the Hills.’ It is such an awesome community. I want something for them not only to be proud of, but they can use daily.”

Bar Cruz will have six bar seats and eight dining room seats. When it gets warmer, the team will add another 14 seats in the courtyard.

The drinks list offering is the sort where “you could pop in every day and have a beer, a glass of wine or a cocktail,” says James. “We’ll have a big focus [on Adelaide Hills wine]. We’ll showcase some different spirits from the Hills, some beer from the Hills. I’m making my own beer as well.”

The biggest drawcard though might end up being the food offering, which will take James’s food – typically the sort of fare you could only get in a pricier degustation – and serve it in an approachable and affordable format.

“There’s a chance that the best bargain at Aptos is coming into Bar Cruz,” says James.

It’s a real choose-your-own-adventure situation. “You could, in Bar Cruz, have a smaller dish and a glass of wine and leave – that might cost you 60 bucks. Or you could have two bottles of wine and you could try most of the menu and spend a couple of hundred,” he says.

There will be an à la carte menu of around 12 dishes – nine savoury and three sweet. Some dishes on this menu will come straight from the Aptos menu. James says that after 10 years of people pestering him about his marron dish and asking where they could buy it as a one-off, Cruz will be providing the solution.

Inspired by the bar scenes in New York and Japan – particularly Gen Yamamoto, which he recently visited – Bar Cruz will also offer a paired cocktail tasting menu of four or five drinks and matching snacks.

Not one to do things by halves, James is also opening a eight-seat whisky bar called Bar Mary. Tucked away upstairs, James says he wants it to be the sort of place where “if you know, you know”.

When it opens it’ll serve whiskies either neat or on the rocks, but there’s talk of serving some whisky cocktails down the line.

The food offering is inspired by the Japanese concept of otsumami the phrase literally translates to “picking” but means “snacks to serve with alcohol”.

“It’s like a bento box or a smorgasbord of four or five items that we create just for that. That’s all we’ll have on the food menu, so people will just ask for ‘the box’,” says James.

Restaurant Aptos will open this winter and then will be followed by the openings of Bar Cruz and Bar Mary.

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