Since A Prayer for the Wild At Heart opened at the end of last year, locals have been quick to embrace the unpretentious brasserie which sits prettily in a breezy ground-floor space in one of Hurtle Square’s chic new apartment complexes.
Owner-operator Emily Raven, who also runs cafe and coffee roastery My Kingdom for a Horse across town, admits to Broadsheet that she’s become “notorious for long, slightly silly names”. She also has a reputation for providing consistent and high-quality casual dining.
After running two My Kingdom for a Horse locations for eight years, Raven has a clear ethos: “I don’t want to ram things down people’s throats too much,” she says. “I’ve learnt to listen to what the local community wants.”
Raven was approached to take over the Hurtle Square site by a regular at My Kingdom for a Horse who – as well as being the landlord for the building – lived next door to what became A Prayer for the Wild at Heart. Raven tells us that, more than just needing a tenant, he wanted “somewhere nice to go”.
A combination of booth and table seating makes economic use of the interior, while large collapsible doors open onto the square. Alfresco seating serves to heighten the “neighbourhood bistro feel”.
The menu is more “grown up” than Raven’s other venues, focusing on lunch and dinner and brought to life by a team of French hospo professionals. “It is purely coincidental but both my front of house and kitchen lead are French,” Raven says. Restaurant manager and sommelier Mathilde Tytgat hails from Lille and chef Stéphane Brizard (ex-Crafers Hotel) was born in Brittany.
On the day we visit, the first dish to hit our table is a colourful carpaccio – a carnival of mixed beetroots, wafer thin, served with black garlic. It’s finished with a scattering of granola that adds weight and texture, grounding the flavours. It’s followed swiftly by a kingfish gravlax with squid ink aioli and apple. The acidity of the dish is dialled down to allow space for a kafir-infused olive oil to really sing.
When a French chef is offering flat iron steak, expectation (and salivation) levels are high – and Brizard does not disappoint. Served simply with potato and broccoli, and finished with a cafe de Paris butter, the dish is deceptively complex. “There are more than 40 ingredients in that butter,” Brizard says.
Dessert offers a light espresso panna cotta (using coffee roasted in-house at My Kingdom for a Horse), with a golden toffee corona, as well as a raspberry mille-feuille with white chocolate ganache and freeze-dried berries, and an almond and dark chocolate tart with tofu and passionfruit that’s been an “unexpected success,” says Raven. “The tofu filling has a surprisingly custard-like texture and flavour, with the shell being a slightly chewy, nutty treat.”
Raven – who has three decades in hospo behind her – calls A Prayer for the Wild at Heart, “a love letter to the hospitality industry and the people who devote their lives to it”. Raven truly loves what she does, and it shows. “I never thought I’d do a ‘cool’ restaurant that’s more of a passion project than it is about making money – but sometimes you have to do things for yourself.”
A Prayer for the Wild at Heart
44 Hurtle Square, Adelaide
Opening Hours:
Mon & Tue 7am–4pm
Wed to Fri 7am–late
Sat & Sun 8am–late
aprayerforthewildatheart.com.au
@aprayerforthewildatheart.adl
