At the end of last year we declared that sandwiches were here to stay. How right we were. Adelaide’s sandwich era simply refuses to end. The bulk of venues in this list are united by a common thread: gorgeously serving things between bread, from Italian panini and Japanese sandos to crisp fried chicken sandwiches and smash burgers. Straying from this carby common ground, some spots are focused instead on serving creamy gelato, serious coffee, and brunch classics with a Sri Lankan twist.

Here – in alphabetical order – are Adelaide’s best new cafes (and casual diners) of 2024.

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, Nguyen and her husband Huy Bui 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, there’s a rota of guest coffees 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 markets, Belles Hot Chicken was one of Adelaide’s most hotly anticipated of the year. The team took three years to transform a Hindley Street corner into a buzzy diner with a retro look complete with chequered lino, neon accents and vintage laminate. Of course, 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, and a couple of beer taps pouring brews by Pirate Life.

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, 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 in Palumbo’s hometown. The terrazzo-speckled site has a 40-flavour cabinet, featuring 35 signature flavours and five rotating ones. Alongside 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 is behind this Daw Park burger shop that does exactly what it says on the tin: really good burgers. To open the venue, Shawyer has linked up with chef Ashley Peek (ex-Our Food Project) and restaurateur Stephen Tzanakis (Burgertec). 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.

You might think you know smash burgers but Jimmy Garside, chef and co-owner of Jumbo, really knows smash burgers. At Jumbo, he’s specialising in Oklahoma-style smashed patties. “[It’s] a thin patty you smash out with a big handful of really thinly sliced onions on top. As it’s cooking on one side, it caramelises, and then when you flip it over, you cook those onions out and they steam through the patty, which makes it super juicy,” Garside tells Broadsheet. Owned by the team behind Pastel and Pinco Deli, the burger menu is tight, including the Oklahoma-smash, a fried fish sandwich and a Nashville-style hot chicken burger. In the morning, there are hotcakes with maple butter as well as sausage-and-egg muffins. Later in the evening, there are mezcal Negronis, rhubarb Gimlets and bottles of Bollinger for the bougier clientele.

Marshi Gnanasooriya grew up cooking with her mother in Colombo. Now living in the Hills with her husband Steven Smith, Gnanasooriya is imbuing brunch classics with Sri Lankan flavours. Menu favourites include the avo toast with house-made beetroot hummus and almond dukkah, the red lentil curry bowl and the lamb roti and prawn scramble with chilli oil and curry lime butter – inspired by Gnanasooriya’s young son. On Friday and Saturday nights, there’s a dinner service with dishes like Jaffna lamb curry served with mint cucumber yoghurt, and barramundi with creamy coconut gravy.

From the husband-wife duo who originally opened UR Caffe, Sathu opened to roaring success at the end of August. The place is always packed with customers sipping coffees under umbrellas, crowding the counter to watch schiacciata slabs being halved and filled to order, or stepping out with a takeaway drink and a pastry from Prove. It’s more than just another sandwich shop. Kate puts her spin on lunchtime with a menu that blends traditional Thai flavours with ideas she gathered while travelling. Her kai satay schiacciata with grilled chicken, gruyere, Thai pickles, iceberg lettuce and a homemade cashew sauce is an early frontrunner for Sathu’s signature item. But it’s got fierce competition from the hot honey cotoletta with provolone, iceberg lettuce and homemade ranch dressing.

Siblings Anna-Lisa and Nick Barone opened their Goodwood deli in March to share and preserve their family traditions. Inspired by the alimentari their grandmother ran back in her Italian village, they’re 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, homemade basil sugo and 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 venue does best: showcase the 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 sweet cheese foam.

Additional reporting by Stacey Caruso, Daniela Frangos, Katie Spain and Tim Watts.