Pork belly with a side dish of iceberg lettuce. Pictures: GREG HIGGS Source: The Advertiser
A MADE-OVER city pub gives balcony dining a whole new meaning.
The make-over of the West End's landmark Colonel Light Hotel must surely be a contender for one of Adelaide's most surprising grand designs.
Developers and restaurateurs Anthony and Lyneece Schmidt have leapt back into the spotlight after several years away from it by taking on what was a dark and smelly old drinking hole and reviving it with a blinding splash of white right through the interior.
The Colonel Light still dominates the northwest corner of Adelaide's Light Square and appears much as it has for years from the outside, but what lies inside and upstairs is quite some deal and says a lot about what pubs have become in the late noughties.
Downstairs has the white-panel appeal of an architecture-digest beach house, open and airy and somehow wanting to be on the coast or in the pages of an uber-design magazine. A small lounge and gathering roomette with more shiny white - leather, paint, mirrors and flower arrangements - shows a feminine hand in the do-up, and one guesses that has come from Lyneece Schmidt who, on this day, is dressed in similar white on white with trademark headwear, a dainty beret.
The other news here is that former Enoteca head chef and The Advertiser 's Adelaide Food Awards 2007 chef of the year Sarah Turner has moved into the kitchen to oversee a casual ground-floor bar menu and more substantial first-floor restaurant offering. Upstairs also has received a highly stylised treatment with an expansive black and white tiled floor that looks like a giant retro bathroom with high stools and a stage where, no doubt, big functions and '80s tribute nights will be all the rage.
As for the dining, the Colonel's grand first-floor verandah has been walled with big, thick plastic curtains and lined with large, old-fashioned timber tables set with linen napkins. It's a unique "room" to dine in, and suffers a little from traffic noise but certainly adds a new edge to the concept of eating out, street-side.
The downstairs bar food menu spruiks oysters many ways, including in a clump, as well as fish and chips in a couple of styles with hand-cut potatoes. A self-promoted steak sandwich has a flag fall at $5.60 then as-required 20-50 c additions to bring it to "with the lot" status, including those big chips, for an extra $2.40. It's a handsome paper-wrapped thing, though its thinly sliced angus beef seems a little light on in volume and hence flavour.
A ubiquitous lightly fried squid dish is much better, again with an underpinning of the wedgy potatoes, but made far more edgy with a black squid ink aioli, that is quite a contrast in its stark white setting. Tastes good, too, and is worthy also of its appearance upstairs on the larger menu.
The right drinks downstairs seem like a choice of mainstream beers while, upstairs, the wine list offers a quirky collection, including four A-list bubbles over the $100 mark, then all whites and reds in ascending price order rather than by style or variety. It's tricky to negotiate, and while there's a spread of regions and boutique producers, it seems a little expensive.
Turner's menu occupies a page and is easier to track, a smart brief that leans very much to winter in Europe with a few twists and turns translating as contemporary Australian.
Scallops, for instance, come with truffled potato "foam", a porcini ragu then a contrary addition of soy beans. Gnocchi with mushroom are soft, scallop-sized pieces with a delicate touch of truffle and herbal touches of sage and lemon - and much more from her previous Italian experience.
A drunken chicken breast salad is really the only dedicated Asian offering, well balanced, yet relatively homely.
Pork belly comes in a richer setting, offset by a curve of scallops topped by salmon roe, all pieces sitting on little pools of cauliflower puree. It's a Turner tried and true combination that's genuinely savoury, a touch salty, all really well cooked and topped by a large Twisties-textured, curled and puffed crackling piece. Quite a deal in pub meal terms.
A king fish fillet doesn't fare as well this outing, flaky rather than "juicy", though a pancetta-flecked potato croquette beside it is great. These also are offered as a side dish, and worth ordering. An iceberg salad is impressive; two huge sections of lettuce that are a tad overdressed with apple cider vinegar for this reviewer's palate which is trying to engage with a warm, wintry red wine at the same time. Unfortunately, they don't match.
These main dishes are all in the $28-$31 mark, so are genuine restaurant statements within a modern pub-dining context. Also on offer is a slow-cooked lamb neck pie, and scotch fillet that starts at 300g then progresses $4 for every extra 100g.
Desserts also stay in tune with the retro setting - a steamed chocolate pudding is so simple yet beautifully executed and presented with a modern artistic "smear". An ice-cream sandwich is creative while remaining comforting.
In a sense, this is the angle of the Colonel's new dining direction - a bit of a bet both ways with plenty of bold wintry flavour to satisfy the steak or pie brigade, as well as a few little Turner finer dining expressions to excite more adventurous appetites.
THE RESTAURANT
COLONEL LIGHT HOTEL
141 Currie St (cnr Light Square), city.
Phone 8231 4044.
Bar meals: All day, seven days
Lunch: Noon-4pm, Mon-Sat
Dinner: From 5pm
Wheelchair access: Not to upstairs restaurant; menu available downstairs at discretion.
Owners: Anthony and Lyneece Schmidt
Head chef: Sarah Turner
THE VERDICT
THE BILL
Entrees: $14.50-$17
Mains: $20-$31
Desserts: $10-$14.50
Corkage: $10
SUMMARY
Set in a highly stylised hotel makeover, acclaimed chef Sarah Turner creates succinct bar and fuller dining room menus that offer familiar casual, as well as a few more creative contemporary dishes. A huge balcony dining space is far more unfamiliar, but adds a unique addition to Adelaide's contemporary lunch and dinner scene.
SCORE 14/20
Score guide: Below 10: Awful. 11-12: Fair. 13-14: Good. 15-16: Special. 17-18: Outstanding.
19: Brilliant. 20: Perfect.
