In a statement posted to Instagram earlier today, Aaron Fenwick, Jasper Button and Anton van Klopper announced the closure of their popular Hills restaurant, The Summertown Aristologist. The venue’s final service will be in mid-December this year – and they’re going ahead with their annual Ciao Ciao end-of-year party on Tuesday December 19.
“After seven years, The Summertown Aristologist in its current form and operation is coming to an end midway through December 2023,” the post reads. “We are extremely proud of what our little Hills restaurant has achieved over the years, and we cannot thank everyone enough who has supported us with their patronage and time.”
The three owners (and influential local winemakers) thanked their staff – “the fabric of this whole adventure” – as well as the local producers and suppliers they’ve worked alongside over the years.
Under Fenwick, Button (winemaker at Commune of Buttons) and van Klopper (Lucy Margaux Wines), The Summertown Aristologist was responsible for introducing natural wine to many Adelaide drinkers and diners. Its dedication to the wine community, its commitment to organic ingredients – most of them grown in the restaurant’s kitchen garden or supplied by local farmers and fishers – and its good-time harvest parties and chef takeovers quickly made the restaurant one of the biggest names on the Adelaide dining scene.
Fenwick – who plans to step away from the restaurant world at the end of the year to focus on his wine label Chateau Comme Ci Comme Ca – spoke to Broadsheet about the legacy of the restaurant he’s helped run for the better part of the last decade.
“We have proven that it is possible to supply your restaurant with vegetables from one piece of land,” he said. “100 per cent of the vegetables we’ve served there in the last three years have come from our garden. I guess the legacy is proving that you can do it – that it’s totally possible with heaps of hard work and the right team.”
“We look forward to having a moment to rethink, reset, recharge and come back,” today’s Instagram post concluded. As to what they’ll come back as, Fenwick remains confident The Summertown Artistologist will continue to exist in some form. “Essentially, we hope it doesn’t close, it just evolves.”
