Africola

Africola is the chef-driven contemporary dining room of South African-born chef Duncan Welgemoed. Opened in 2014 on East Terrace in the Adelaide CBD. And is the city's most distinctive contemporary chef-driven kitchen. The restaurant runs as a super-buzzy modern-South-African-Mediterranean fusion programme that has earned numerous Australian-restaurant awards across a decade.

The cuisine is South African barbecue with the addition of North African flavours. The menu changes seasonally; signatures include a slow-cooked South-African-style barbecue Wagyu with North African herbs; a hand-rolled tagliolino with native-pepper-leaf; pickled vegetables; hummus and flatbreads; a wood-fired SA-coast snapper with samphire; the famous 'koeksister'. A South African doughnut with native-honey sauce.

The wine list runs to 350 references with deep South Australian smallholder coverage and a respectable South-African Pinotage section that no other Adelaide restaurant carries. The cocktail bar runs a serious Australian-and-South-African-spirits programme.

Service is precision-Welgemoed. The captains rotate from a year-round staff pool. Africola is the dining room that visiting Australian and international chefs use as a default Adelaide address.

Africola is the easy-first-date room in Adelaide. Quieter than Penfolds Magill, less formal than Restaurant Botanic, and the South African-Mediterranean fusion is genuinely distinctive. Book the corner two-top.