The last time we caught up to chat restaurant openings in Adelaide, things were pretty slow. And that remains the case, with new bars and new cafe and casual spots (including an absolute avalanche of sandwich bars) both outpacing new restaurants. But what we’ve lacked in quantity is more than made up for by the quality of the nine new restaurants that have made our list of Adelaide’s best this year.

Here, in alphabetical order, are the nine new restaurants that have caught our eye this year (along with an honourable mention).

Aside from a couple of tapas restaurants, paella pop-ups and a certain churro franchise, Spanish restaurants are few and far between in Adelaide. So when this 52-seat restaurant co-owned by Leonardo Loureiro of Basque by Leo fame opened in October, it was a welcome addition to the local scene. The menu is broadly Spanish with a lean towards Basque cuisine, but is far from being hemmed in by the strictly traditional – dishes are modernised wherever possible. The wine list favours biodynamic drops and local producers, but Spanish beers and easy-drinking cocktails are also available.

@ninarestaurantadl

This multifaceted spot from the Bistro Francais team serves a fusion menu of small plates and hearty mains. “The idea is to serve food that we like. Nothing too fussy, nothing fancy and nothing over-the-top,” Nazzareno Falaschetti told Broadsheet. The one-page menu is brief but beautifully considered, with standouts including blue crab beignets with seaweed mayonnaise; smoked potato dumplings; and Murray Valley pork chop with bok choy and sesame miso. Twenty-four mostly local wines are on-tap and served by the glass thanks to an argon gas system souvenired from the venue’s previous life as a wine bar.

@foursides_hydepark

Kiin opened late last year (missing out on our best restaurants of 2022 wrap), but this Thai-fusion restaurant was too good to leave off this list. The CBD restaurant is a collaboration between sommelier David Wickwar, who founded Melbourne’s Vaporetto wine bar, and chef Ben Bertei, who has spent decades merging Thai flavours with Western techniques at Melbourne’s Longrain, Spirit House on the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane’s Same Same. The menu playfully crosses cuisines while staying true to the core tenets of Thai food – the right balance of salty, spicy, sweet and sour. There’s a red curry cheeseburger with crispy onion as well as a rich, oozy burrata served with green nam jim and roti, which Bertei refers to as “a more upmarket version” of Philly cream cheese with sweet chilli sauce. Wickwar’s wine list is a tight selection of largely South Australian wines that complement the food.

@kiinrestaurant

When the teams behind Nola and Shotgun Willies opened their moody, subterranean French restaurant in July, their first move was to tap French-born chef Alexis Besseau (former head chef behind the highly successful Sydney bistro Restaurant Hubert) to helm the restaurant. Besseau is focusing on classic brasserie dishes, from gruyere cheese soufflé to snails and crème brûlée. Dishes are served on old-school blue-rimmed plates heaped high with steak frites and pate en croute. Ruby-red steak tartare is served with “pommes gaufrette”, a haute-cuisine answer to waffle-cut chips. There’s a signature burger and fries (which dare we say might compete with Hubert’s cult cheeseburger). With deep booths, plush red-velvet seating and white tapers and tri-colour flags springing from empty bottles of French champagne, the former Wing It sports bar space is all but unrecognisable.

@lalouisianeadl

The highly anticipated new bistro from the Clever Little Tailor team has been a long time coming. With a European bistro feel, a one-page menu that comfortably straddles daytime and evening services and a pair of former Summertown Aristologist chefs in the kitchen, this Pirie Street spot has all the markings of an institution in the making. Menu highlights include bootleg bucatini smothered in vodka sauce; King George whiting served with green sauce; and steaming mussels served in a creamy white wine sauce. The drinks list is a mixtape of global hits with an emphasis on the wines the team enjoys personally. In lieu of an AUX cord a vintage turntable sits on the 14-metre-long bar playing tunes through a custom Funktion-One sound system.

@longplaybistro

In February, chef Andrew Davies (co-owner of Osteria Oggi and formerly of Press Food & Wine, Bread & Bone and Maybe Mae), wife Belle Kha and two long-time friends from the wine industry, headed to the Hills to open a new restaurant that highlights slow living and simple dishes. The aim is simply to serve quality food in a relaxed environment; guests can come by for a long lunch, stop in for a beer, or just enjoy a coffee and a sweet treat in the garden. Alongside Davies, chefs Damiano Pellegrini and Tim Caputo are churning out dishes that focus on flavour and texture, rather than shoehorning as many elements as possible onto the plate. The desserts are particularly impressive, with Davies describing them as some of “the best desserts in Adelaide” – they include in-house gelato, a warm and fluffy soufflé, and a silky brûlée.

@patchkitchengarden

An unpretentious neighbourhood brasserie (with a lengthy literary name), A Prayer for the Wild at Heart opened at the very tail end of 2022 in a breezy indoor-outdoor space in Hurtle Square. From the owner-operator of My Kingdom for a Horse, the slightly more grown-up venue opened with a host of francophone talent including chef Stéphane Brizard (ex-Crafers Hotel), who was born in Brittany. Serving simple French fare, entrees such as a terrine of poached salmon served with sorrel and lemon sauce are followed by hefty mains.

@aprayerforthewildatheart.adl

If you told us one of the best new restaurant openings in Adelaide would come from a first-time restaurant owner who didn’t know how to cook at the start of the year, we’d have laughed you out of the room. Tiki’s Thai Cuisine is a wonderful surprise, a simple corner spot serving sumptuous Thai curries, soups and noodle dishes. Owner Phatsachon Ritnayom, known as Tiki, enlisted the help of chef Jukkit Suwannakhot, and now their crispy bao with crunchy pork belly, pickled cucumber, crushed peanuts and fiery chilli is being called one of the best bao in the western suburbs.

@tikisthaicuisine

The team behind successful city bistro Herringbone and the laid-back Crafers Pizza Bar has opened its third venue. The 80-seat Mediterranean restaurant in Adelaide’s leafy eastern suburbs has a back-to-basics approach. “There’re fads in restaurants … but there’s also a lot of classic stuff that’s been forgotten about. So, when I say back to basics, I mean just presenting and cooking food in a way that’s focusing on what you are doing and not on the chef’s ego or Instagram or any crap like that,” chef-owner Quentin Whittle told Broadsheet. Entrees include an escabeche of garfish and a smoked pork rillette with a crispy fig and maple bread, while mains range from spaghetti vongole to grilled porterhouse and sticky beef short ribs.

@trak.adl

Loc, CBD: Okay, so it’s not new, nor is it a restaurant. But Loc’s chef residency series, which kicked off in August with former Summertown Aristologist chef Tom Campbell, earns it a spot on this list. The tiny kitchen hosts a new chef every few months, with Clare Falzon (formerly of Hentley Farm) currently on the pans.

Additional reporting by Kurtis Eichler, Daniela Frangos, Helen Karakulak, Tim Watts & Nicole Wedding.