Barossa Valley: Why this Adelaide escape is becoming Australia's new foodie hub

The Barossa Valley used to be all about wine, but a flurry of new restaurants is making it a serious foodie hub

(Hentley Farm)

The restaurants of South Australia’s pastoral Barossa Valley don’t simply post menus online. Instead, they post food philosophies, love letters to seasonal vegetables and friendly lectures on the virtues of sustainable eating.

An hour’s drive north-east of Adelaide, the area built its reputation as an exceptional wine country long ago, specialising in full-bodied reds from grapes first planted by German settlers. But spurred by a state campaign that launched three years ago to emphasise the region’s reputation for heritage breed livestock and “minimal intervention” produce, the Barossa has been quickly solidifying a magnificent culinary reputation, too.

Inspiration here is abundant. The Barossa’s beautiful green hills are the ideal place for grazing sheep, for dining alfresco next to adoringly tended herb gardens and for photogenic chefs whose hobbies likely include pickling foraged garlic scapes (the flower bud of the plant) and plucking just-ripe plums off roadside trees.

Just as Thomas Keller forever changed the dining landscape of California’s Napa Valley when he opened French Laundry in 1994, the Barossa is now home to Australian chefs and restaurants who are helping shape a broader national culinary project. The region’s charming, hyper-committed food culture is part of a new “modern Australian” cuisine that’s rooted less in specific technique or tradition and more in superb local and indigenous produce.

But it wasn’t always so. When chef Lachlan Colwill opened a restaurant at Hentley Farm winery in 2012, he was told that fine dining would never work in the sleepy Barossa. His restaurant, which has a focus on ingredients collected from the surrounding hillsides, has been so successful that he’s drafting plans to add a small boutique hotel to the site.

Nearby fermentAsian, widely considered to have Australia’s best wine list, combines Vietnamese and Thai food traditions with ingredients sourced from the owners’ home garden – for example, South Australian squid with sorrel and coriander pesto.

And Appellation at The Louise, the first luxury vineyard retreat and destination restaurant known for farm-to-table dining, was recently added to the prestigious Relais and Chateaux network thanks to its ingredient-focused dishes like a terrine of red beets with goat’s curd, dill and walnut vinaigrette.

Wealthy Australians, I’ve been told, sometimes fly in from Melbourne and Sydney – 500 and 800 miles respectively – just to eat dinner at one of the Barossa Valley’s increasingly famous locavore restaurants.

“The Barossa is breaking out of the reputation as shiraz country,” says Pete Little, manager of Harvest Kitchen. “People know a lot more about the food now and they’re asking more questions.” Little says consumer interest has become highly focused: “They want to hear the stories, down to the winemaker’s dog’s name. If you’re not using local, seasonal produce, you’re on the fringes.” Even Beans and Cream, the local coffee shop in the tiny town of Tanunda, serves cold brew with high-fat non-homogenised milk from the Adelaide Hills.

Lachlan Colwill opened his restaurant at Hentley Farm winery in 2012 (Hentley Farm)

The Barossa’s restaurants source from closed flock ducks (where no adults are introduced to the flock, in a bid to keep them healthier) and minimal-spray fruits and vegetables. Seasonal produce comes and goes in just days here, and the food scene is driven by the relationship between speciality producers and the growing ranks of chefs. The Barossa Valley Cheese Company – cow and goat milk cheeses handmade by a former winemaker – recently more than doubled the size of its storefront to accommodate demand.

Meanwhile, the much loved Barossa Farmer’s Market, which operates on Saturday mornings, has become one of South Australia’s premiere culinary destinations, with finicky chefs queueing for the best cherries, honey, oyster mushrooms and microgreens. Local sourcing, an embarrassment of riches, has become an obsession for many. “I used to play golf to clear my head,” says Little. “But now I forage for wild mushrooms.”

Saskia Beer – daughter to TV chef and Barossa trailblazer Maggie Beer – recently returned to the area to breed heritage pigs and fowl. At Farmhouse, the mother-daughter duo sell everything from local jams and olive oils to free-range chickens and smoked meats, and provide a fair trade marketplace for small, independent producers.

But Hentley Farm might be the Barossa’s most charming example of hyper-seasonal dining. Colwill offers about 20 menu items at any given time, and about 60 per cent of the menu changes from week to week, depending on what’s good. Marron, a local shellfish similar to crayfish, might reach peak sweetness for four weeks at the most, while the much prized local asparagus might only last a single day. (One year, sheep got into the asparagus patch and that was that – much to the disheartenment of the local culinary community.)

“They’ve been growing and cooking with these ingredients for generations and good, honest produce is just part of the legacy here,” Colwill says about the Barossa’s foodie heritage. And then he says, warmly: “I grew up on a farm with orchards, chickens and quails, but Barossa growers are the most judgemental farmers I’ve ever met.”

Travel essentials

Getting there

Qantas flies to Adelaide from Heathrow via Dubai and Sydney from around £780 return. From there, Barossa is an hour’s drive.

Staying there

The Louise has doubles from A$585 (£326), B&B.

More information

barossa.com