The Adelaide Adventure: Must do Food, Wine & Experiences
A visual journey by Emily Clarke of Life Portraits
When you think of Australia’s ‘must visit’ cities , Adelaide isn’t one that immediately comes to mind. However, with all the covid advertising for exploring Australia, Adelaide sparked my interest and after doing some more research, I was blown away by this beautiful city. How had I not visited this incredible city yet?!
My partner, Corey, and I love travel experiences, so as my early 30th Birthday getaway, we booked a long weekend adventure to Adelaide to celebrate. It turned out to be a much bigger celebration with him popping the question while we were there! <3
The Adelaide region is renowned for its wine & food, hills and coastlines and it’s beautiful churches and old buildings, and boy, did it deliver! Take a visual journey through our 4 day adventure of Adelaide and the surrounding regions!
Adelaide City
We were lucky enough to stay in a beautiful North Adelaide cottage walking distance to the city (check out the airbnb HERE). The picturesque streets are filled with heritage mansions, villas, and worker’s cottages shaded by the canopies of perennial trees. With its renowned Melbourne and O'Connell streets for cafes, restaurants and trendy boutiques, it’s a beautiful area to stay while you’re Adelaide.
We spent a full day exploring Adelaide city on foot and if you’re not a big fan of getting 25,000+ steps in one day haha there is the free city connectors running two loops – an inner city loop and an extended loop around North Adelaide providing a link to popular city attractions and shopping, dining and services destinations. Walking from our Airbnb in North Adelaide we saw the City Botanical Gardens, Zoo, Adelaide Oval and the beautiful gardens surrounding the city. Our first stop was on the other side of the city the Adelaide Himeji Gardens, stepping past the ornate gates to the beautiful little wonderland to experience the beauty of Japan. We then walked to the renowned Adelaide Central Market, the premier food destination for multicultural cuisine and fresh produce, a must visit for your food and culture fix! We explored the many streets of the Rundle Mall, the main city shopping precinct and then made our way over to the MOD. MOD is is a futuristic museum of discovery, sitting at the intersection of art and science. We loved experiencing the ‘It’s complicated’ exhibition and interacting with the installations.
Of course one of the most memorable parts of our trip was our food experiences! After a lot of research, we had two places on our must-visit place while in Adelaide, Africola and Luigi Delicatessen.
Africola is one hell of a food and dining experience. The restaurant offers a set menu of incredible North African dishes that you can allow the chef to choose to bring out and changes according to seasonality. As quoted by The Fork, “Africola brings serious funk to Adelaide’s dining scene. The tasty North African cuisine, crafted by head chef, Duncan Welgemoed, is sure to lure you in so that you can experience mini flavour explosions with every bite. Enjoy African specialties of meat and vegetable dishes as well as breads, dips and pickles.” And they were spot in! We got to experience the full kitchen experience at the bar, watching and capturing the food as it was crafted on the plate. One of the BEST food experiences i’ve had in my life! PLEASE, book in advance and experience Africola, we booked a month in advance, it’s HOT!
Luigi Delicatessen is your first class italian experience by passionate owner Luigi from Naples. Upon entering his beautiful atmospheric restaurant you are greeted like family. There is no menu, he and his staff join you at your table and explain the fresh and authentic meals being cooked that day in the kitchen and they help cater your choice to your taste and needs. WOW, is all I can say! We were celebrating two occasions, my early 30th and Corey proposed the night before, so it was an experience to remember. Luigi chatted to us like friends, told us the story of his Mamma and her influence on the restaurant before she passed, celebrated our news with us with a champagne and guided us with our food choice - three beautiful pasta seafood and ragu dishes with fresh garlic bread. We cannot recommend this experience highly enough! You will not be disappointed, you only have to look at the 1200+ 5 star reviews on tripadvisor haha with another from me!
Adelaide Hills & Hahndorf
A trip to Adelaide isn’t complete until you’ve visited the Adelaide Hills. We hired a car so we were able to do day trips from Adelaide and LOVED the atmosphere of Adelaide Hills and Hahndorf. Must visit spots on your way up the mountain is Mt Lofty Summit for views to die for, Mt Lofty Botanical Gardens for your nature fix and a drive by Mt Lofty House to see the 5 star boutique hotel with views to die for.
Our next stop was the gorgeous township of Hahndorf, Australia’s oldest surviving German settlement. The streets had so many beautiful touches of character like you were in Germany! We visited The Haus Restaurant and had their HUGE platter featuring a pork hock, schnitzel, sausages, double smoked bacon, sides and of course accompanied by a German Beer. Before heading back to Adelaide we had to visit the renowned ‘The Lane Vineyard’ to do some tastings. Such a beautiful winery with breaktaking views. We walked away with their 2016 ‘Reunion’ Shiraz for our special occasion weekend, superb!
Barossa Wine Tour
You haven’t experienced the full experience of Adelaide until you’ve been on a wine tour. With so many options for wine tour regions, the hardest decision is choosing which one! We went with the “Taste the Barossa” full day wine tour. Our incredible experience included Chateau Yaldara, Peter Lehmann where we had a gorgeous lunch platter of cheese and meats to pair with our wine, Lambert Wines & Wolff Bass. Our tour guide Dallas was wonderful and made a fun experience with lots of knowledge along the way.
Fleurieu Peninsula
South Australia has some spectacular natural attractions however a lot of them are long distances from Adelaide - Great Australian Bight, Mt Gambier, Coober Pedy, Flinders Ranges, Murray River (for another trip!). So we explored closer to Adelaide, only 40 mins south, the Fleurieu Peninsula. We LOVED exploring Hallett Cove Boardwalk area learning about the vast arrays of geological features, past ice ages, climatic changes, prior shoreline positions and erosion activities and how they have impacted the coastline. We walked down to the beach side and embraced the beauty of the many layers of sediment and beautiful colours on the cliffs. We couldn’t leave without bui8lding rock towers out of the beautiful smooth rocks!
We drove inland and visited some of the renowned wineries and breweries D’Arengerg Cube, Swell Brewery, Shifty Lizard Brewery and Hugh Grant Wines. Finishing the day with a trip to Port Willunga Beach & Caves, these unique caves which have been carved into rock, were once used by fishermen to store their boats and fishing rods.
