Yep, Adelaide is still in its sandwich era! This year, we’re continuing our love affair with unfussy Italian sandwiches, while there are also two-hander Japanese sandos, serious fried chicken sandwiches and smash burgers (look, burgers are essentially sandwiches in our book). Joining the onslaught is a sustainable dry-aged seafood stall from a Heston Blumenthal-trained chef, and the first SA outpost from Australia’s most popular gelateria. There’s also a bistro-meets-cafe-meets-wine-bar with Noma, Summertown Aristologist and Loc DNA that might just be the best opening of the year so far.

Here – in alphabetical order – are the best new cafes and casual diners in Adelaide this year so far.

After spending seven years with Exchange Coffee, Jo Nguyen picked up a thing or two about how to run a seriously good coffee shop. In April this year, with her husband Huy Bui by her side, Nguyen opened a teeny coffee shop in Bowden. The house blend comes from Melbourne’s Market Lane Coffee, chosen because of its transparent trading practices. Alongside Market Lane a rota of guest coffees comes from other leading roasters: Sydney’s Artificer and Reuben Hills, ACT’s Redbrick Coffee and SA locals Kindred Coffee. The menu is to the point and strictly coffee-first. There’s espresso, pour-over and batch brew, plus a handful of non-coffee drinks from small local suppliers as well as a selection of perfectly crisp pastries from Fold.

Having already made its mark on the fiercely competitive Sydney and Melbourne chicken scenes, Belles Hot Chicken was one of Adelaide’s most hotly anticipated of the year. The team took three years to transform its Hindley Street corner into a buzzy diner with a retro look with chequered lino, neon accents and vintage laminate. For everyone who had tasted Belles at interstate locations, the biggest challenge was living up to the hype. The chicken joint has met (and exceeded) expectations with a menu offering signature fried chicken: tenders or wings prepped to your choice of heat and chicken and waffles for weekend lunches. The beverage menu includes boozy slushies, spiked coolers (lemonade, peach iced tea and Arnold Palmers), and a couple of beer taps pouring brews by Pirate Life.

Don’s Deli isn’t reinventing the wheel. And it doesn’t need to. Despite the proliferation of sandwich bars across the city, there’s still joy in finding a good, honest sandwich that’s not trying to do too much. At Don’s the brief was simple: keep it to four ingredients or less. The team is leaning into classic flavour combinations. Sourdough focaccia comes fresh or toasted and packs porchetta with cavolo nero; potato cream and rosemary; or layers of mortadella with creamy stracciatella, pistachio and chilli honey. The set-up is equally unfussy: just a hole-in-the-wall window attached to hairdresser Surreal. The fillings are prepped at Lune then carried across to Don’s for the two-person team to assemble. Coffees are cheap and cheerful with espressos for $2 a pop, but there’s also batch brew and milk coffee – made with Dawn Patrol beans – plus pastries from Prove Patisserie.

When Angler opened in Stirling in 2020, it redefined the local fish’n’chip shop menu with seafood sausages, dry-aged sashimi and carp bacon made from seafood. Although Angler announced its closure earlier this week, the Central Market bar and kitchen the team opened earlier this year continues to be strong. Fair Seafood claims to be the first and only Australian seafood wholesaler and retailer to provide 100 per cent traceability on all its products. The team works with small-scale fishers so they can tell you where, when and how each fish was caught. Because of that the menu depends on what’s hauled in and changes frequently, but you’ll always be able to pick up dry-aged sashimi and fish’n’chips (with “Heston-style” hand-cut potatoes and Coopers beer batter; chef Sam Prance-Smith trained under Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck). You can stop in for breakfast too (think eggs Benedict with sand crab and smoked Ora King salmon rillette) or grab pre-made items to go (like mussel hotpots, pipi clam chowder and lobster rolls).

In the last year, the number of Adelaide’s sandwich delis has skyrocketed. But not too many are doing it with the chops of James Brinklow, (Auge, The Lane Vineyard). Fewer still are doing it in Hahndorf. Brinklow has transformed the former site of the German Village Shop into a contemporary cafe and deli (retaining the heritage 1866 frontage) with a light, bright fit-out, forest-green cabinetry and terrazzo flooring. On the menu: four sandwiches served on his light and airy 24-hour-proved focaccia. There’s a deli meats number with mortadella and two kinds of salami, basil pesto, stracciatella and antipasto; chicken salad with poached chicken, mayo, cucumber, almond and oak lettuce; a meatball sub with pork and veal polpette, green salsa and Parmigiano Reggiano; and a vego option with soft egg, mayo, oak lettuce, kale pesto and avo. There’s also a lunch menu of relaxed, home-style Mediterranean plates like cotoletta alla Milanese, house-made pasta (with blue swimmer crab, chilli and Ambleside gin or sage and white pork ragu), salumi sliced to order, and snacky tinned seafood served with that house-baked focaccia, pickles and a coddled egg.

Gelato Messina has scooped up fans across Australia since it launched in Sydney in 2002. But the east coast gelateria really started in Adelaide – where its founder Nick Palumbo was born. Over the years, it spread interstate (and to Hong Kong), but earlier this year it finally opened up in Palumbo’s hometown. The terrazzo-speckled site has a 40-flavour cabinet, featuring 35 signature flavours and five rotating ones. Alongside the gelato (and sorbet), there’s a selection of gelato cakes and jars of house-made dulce de leche and choc-hazelnut spread to take home. All the ingredients – including the brownies, the pralines, the pastries and apple pie – are made by chefs at Messina’s Sydney HQ. The gelato is then churned fresh at Kent Town, using high-fat milk produced from jersey cows at the brand’s dairy farm in country Victoria.

Good Gilbert’s Wilson Shawyer’s Daw Park burger shop does exactly what it says on the tin: serves really good burgers. To open the venue Shawyer has linked up with chef Ashley Peek (ex-Our Food Project) and restaurateur Stephen Tzanakis (Burgertec) to launch the new concept, Good Burger, at the former Our Food Project site. The burgers, priced between $19 and $23, are indeed good – great, even. Among them is the signature Good Burger, a classic cheeseburger with two smashed beef patties, cheese, pickles, onion and “good sauce”; the slightly fancier Daw Park Cheeseburger, which replaces pickles with cornichons, onion with shallots and regular cheese with raclette; and a vegan number with a faux-meat patty from Buds Burger, peppers and crisp fried potato. There’s also the Chicago-style Hot Beef sandwich with sliced beef, peppers, caramelised onions, cheese and giardiniera; a prawn roll; and fried chicken, which you can get on its own, smothered with hot honey, or in a burger bun.

Thelma isn’t a cafe, nor is it really a bistro. Housed inside the old Brid space, this all-day dining destination is inspired by like-minded venues in Europe, where you can have your morning coffee, grab a glass of wine and a snack, or pick up provisions for dinner under the one roof. The trio of James Spreadbury (service directory at Copenhagen’s Noma), Loc’s Olivia Moore and former Summertown Aristologist chef Tom Campbell share a similar approach to food, wine and hospitality, and a deep respect for produce and provenance. The food at Thelma is best described as European country cooking, informed by what Spreadbury’s brother Tim is growing at his small-scale market garden, Presqil, nearby. That might mean evolving, grazing-style breakfast plates – made up of bits and pieces like seasonal veggies, cheese slices, house-made sourdough and a boiled egg – or Comte tarts, escargots and savory pizzettas. For lunch, expect nourishing, produce-led, French-leaning dishes alongside local and European wines made as purely as possible.

Siblings Anna-Lisa and Nick Barone opened their Goodwood deli in March to share and preserve their family traditions. Inspired by the village alimentari their grandmother ran back in Italy, they are serving uncomplicated sandwiches stacked with Italian filings. There’s a tricolore sandwich with prosciutto, fior di latte, basil and tomato; a capocollo with dry-cured pork, gorgonzola, hazelnut-infused agliata, chilli honey and rocket; and a cotoletta with crispy chicken, a homemade basil sugo and a blowtorched provolone. Most of the Italian pastries are baked in-house by Nick and his father Claud using family recipes.

There’s nothing “grab and go” about Yuna’s egg sando. It’s a beast that requires a seat at the table, two hands and your full attention. Picture thick slices of fluffy shokupan enveloping a soft-boiled egg and a glop of creamy egg salad, served with a side of fries flecked with salted nori. It’s a prime example of what this cafe/restaurant does best: showcasing a comforting, homey side of Japanese cuisine. The breakfast menu might include a French toast croissant with black sesame crema; and a traditional breakfast set with salted salmon, tamago, miso soup and house-made pickle. There are also ramen noodle soups, available alongside sandos until both are sold out. To drink there are specialty brews by Ona Coffee and house-made iced drinks – including peach iced tea and a green “matcha cloud” topped with cheese foam.

Additional reporting by Daniel Cunningham, Daniela Frangos, Katie Spain, Max Veenhuyzen and Tim Watts.