All the New Adelaide Openings We Got Excited About This Spring (So Far)

From gelaterias and taquerias to falafel joints and Greek tavernas, the breadth of local cuisines in South Australia was on full display this spring. 

Here – in alphabetical order – are eight new restaurants, bars and cafes we covered recently in Adelaide. 

Elliniko Eatery, Malvern

Antonis Savas and Ioannis Patros opened Elliniko Eatery in Malvern back in April (but we covered it this spring). The pair’s focus is on classic comfort food. There’s an emphasis on tradition; for example, Elliniko’s pastitsio recipe has been passed down through four generations. Other nostalgia-laden dishes include gemista (baked capsicum stuffed with herbed rice), moussaka and traditional Cypriot loukaniko. The menu goes long on dips, with house-made taramosalata, skordalia and melitzanosalata. Finish sweet with loukoumades or galaktoboureko, which is made with filo pastry, semolina custard and citrus syrup. Greek drinks like ouzo, tsipouro and Mythos are also well represented.

Falafel Station, St Morris

Falafel Station was already good, but now it’s great. Husband-wife duo Mazen and Sahar El-Baba had been serving Lebanese food from their Prospect base for two years, but when regulars started jokingly complaining that they couldn’t bring their families to sit down and enjoy a meal, they knew it was time to scale up. Now with a new, bright and airy St Morris space, they have capacity to seat 65 patrons. The menu has also expanded. While the old menu scratched the surface of Lebanese food, the new one showcases the depth of the El-Babas’ native cuisine. There’s shakshuka; house-made sausages; chickpeas with yoghurt, bread crisps and almonds (fatteh); kofta; falafel; and crispy woodfired flatbread (manoush) with more than 12 topping options (Sahar’s pick is za’atar). “Everything here is exactly how you’ll see it in Lebanon,” says Sahar.

The El-Babas moved to SA from the Middle East and, despite having a wealth of hospitality experience, they were hesitant to open a restaurant in Australia. “We knew nothing about Australia. We were very well known where we were, and in Lebanon, and here we didn’t know anyone. That’s why we started small with Prospect. We said, ‘We will see how it goes’ … and it went very well.”

Icardis, North Adelaide

Jared Chahoud is no stranger to O’Connell Street. He grew up working alongside his father, Gaby Chahoud, who owns several venues on the same strip. Last week, Jared stepped into the big leagues, opening Icardis alongside co-owner Andrew Marks. The burgundy and walnut-hued space sits just 500 metres from his father’s first venue (Pellegrini Cafe). The menu draws influence from across the Mediterranean, with Italian-inspired pastas including rigatoni with pork and fennel sausage, borlotti and porcini; a Grecian grilled octopus with chickpeas and roast grapes; and a Middle Eastern wood-roasted pumpkin served with date molasses, sesame and rosemary. Jared calls the woodfired oven “the heart and soul of the venue”. It’s used to cook flatbread (perfect for mopping up whipped feta); Skull Island prawns with garlic butter; chicken with corn, zucchini and graviera (a Greek hard cheese); and an orange cake with burnt meringue. The wine list eschews the Med and instead leans local. “We could have gone down the Mediterranean route, but we wanted the best of the best and SA has that,” says Jared.

Joe’s at Sabella, McLaren Vale

Timmy Forster and Lilli Willoughby took over Joe’s at Sabella in February and kicked off Locals Night a month later. The pair are serving excellent Italian food from their converted 1860s church. On Wednesday evenings they’re serving a pasta special, house-made focaccia and sides made with local ingredients. Pasta specials have included ragu; Coorong mullet, Goolwa pippies and aglio e olio; Ellis Butchers’ Italian sausage served with roast tomato and charcuterie scrap sugo over linguini; and a carbonara with “no cream, no peas, no fkn chicken”. It rings in at $20 a person and there’s free BYO. “The thing is, we don’t have 150 people booked in (with 100 more on a waitlist), just because we have free BYO. It’s due to the community and culture we’ve nurtured. The ‘come as you are’ culture is fitting for a church,” Forster says.

The extended menu explores Italian fare, with small plates like pomodori or grass-fed beef tongue, and smoked salt Kettle chips. Larger mains include a signature pasta bake and pizzas which range from standard margheritas to white clam pies (made with local razor clam, chowder bechamel and speck). They’re also launching a pizza night for summer.

Lola’s, Norwood

The East End Cellars team has reimagined their Norwood space as Lola’s, a grown up wine bar, with a proper kitchen and room to dance. Heading up the aforementioned “proper kitchen” is Aaron Roberts, who was previously head chef at Stem (now Canopy Bar). He’s serving oysters with Japanese chilli oil; beef tartare with house-made crisps; pork Milanese with caper butter and remoulade; and mussels with sobrasada and charred fennel. The list reads snacky, but you can absolutely make a meal of it.

As for drinks, there’s an extensive wine list with wines by the glass, including Krug champagne (Lola’s is one of only two so-called Krug embassies in Australia), plus a knockout cocktail list. Highlights include the Caramel Espresso Martini made with Australian Distilling Co’s Adelaide vodka; the Cherry Sour; and signature drink The Lola, a zesty pink number made with Never Never Ginache Gin, Aperol, strawberry and pink grapefruit soda.

There are plans to have DJs on the occasional Friday night. And when your plates are cleared, no one’s stopping you from pushing your seat to the side and getting your groove on.

Sugar Man Gelato, Adelaide

Alex “Sugar Man” Crawford’s first retail store opened on Hutt Street in 2022. It wasn’t long before his pastries gained cult status. But it was “a double-edged sword”, says Crawford. “For a micro business, it was hugely humbling that people took the time out of their weekend to wait in line for our product. But it placed a lot of pressure on the team.” Quickly, he and sous-chef (now business partner) Stephanie Taylor began experimenting with gelato. Soon, the pair decided to switch up the Sugar Man concept entirely.  They closed for three months, and then opened Sugar Man Gelato in October this year.

Flavours include single-origin chocolate gelato, made using 65 per cent Valrhona Grenada dark chocolate; a strawberry sorbet made with Adelaide Hills strawberries; and a yuzu, salted coconut milk and Thai basil scoop, made using locally grown Thai basil and yuzu from NSW. There’s also “salted butter caramel on sourdough toast” made with Jersey butter from The Dairyman Barossa and hunks of toasted bread; and Riverland-grown black Genoa figs – poached in Frederick Stevenson sangiovese – swirled through whipped ricotta from La Casa Del Formaggio. Everything is made from scratch, without pastes, gels or colours. He’s collaborating with local bakers including a Basque cheesecake tart gelato, made with chocolatier Steven ter Horst.

Taco José, McLaren Vale

Timmy Forster loves Mexican food – but “not the burritos with sour cream kind,” he says. After a year living in Sinaloa and being part of various Mexican culinary projects in Australia, he’s finally realised his dream of opening his own “proper Mexican food spot”. Enter Taco José, a Friday-to-Sunday taqueria Forster and his partner Lili Willoughby opened in the courtyard of his Italian joint Joe’s at Sabella.

The menu is tight, with less than 10 items. There are three types of tacos, including a stunning chicken number that involves one whole week of marination, a rice-and-bean dish and street chips. All the meats are woodfired for big, bold, smoky flavours. There’s also a self-serve shrine to chilli condiments. To drink, there’s mezcal slushies and lesser-known drinks like agua de Jamaica, a hibiscus iced tea that’s considered “a hangover cure in Mexico,” says Forster.

Vasili’s Table, West Beach

Vasili’s Table only opened in August, but the concept was conceived about a decade earlier. Chef Vasili Petropoulos, who previously worked as executive chef for Bill Granger’s restaurant group Bills, wanted to open a restaurant that celebrated the specifics of his Greek heritage, particularly his parents’ homelands – the island of Ikaria and the town of Kalamata. He converted the car park of the West Beach space into a kitchen garden complete with beehives, vegetable patches and a chicken house. The fit-out was retro and nostalgic, with a breeze-block feature wall and a stage for live music.

Petropoulos says the menu is changing “almost daily”. There’s a strong focus on vegetables – a nod to Ikaria’s status as a Blue Zone state – with snake bean stew (fasolakia), boiled greens (horta) and fava. Everything from pasta to pita is made in-house. The team is producing its own honey (from the beehives), taramosalata, baba ganoush, zucchini dip, loukaniko sausages, pickled vegetables and boozy gelato (flavoured with ouzo and mastiha). There’s also baklava ice-cream and house-made spirits.

@elliniko_eatery

@falafelstation.sa

@icardis_adl

@joes.sabella

@lolasnorwood_

@sugar.man.adl

@taco.jose.taco

@vasilistable

Reporting by Daniela Frangos, Katie Spain, Emily Talinagis and Isabella Vagoni.