Featuring: Summertown Aristologist, Fino Vino, Lantern by Nu…

IT’S the dream of many a restaurant to have its own kitchen garden, but in the case of the Summertown Aristologist, a tiny hyper-local Adelaide Hills diner, it became a commercial lifesaver during the South Australian COVID 19 lockdown.
Despite its limited size and rotating roster of finely talented young chefs, the Aristologist has become a must visit destination both as a haven for natural or limited intervention wines, many of them from the surrounding region, and for its pared back menu featuring as much locally-grown or made produce as possible.
Current chefs Tom Campbell (ex-Africola, Igni in Geelong) and Ethan Eadie (ex Fino Willunga, Africola) had watched as much of the surrounding hills went up in smoke early in the year in devastating bushfires, and had no sooner hoped for a return to normal before the coronovirus pandemic shut them down in March, along with all the State’s restaurants.
It was, Tom says, a very emotional time and like so many restaurants they had to devise a rapid survival plan – and it lay in the extensive kitchen garden already established on the property of restaurant co-owner and Lucy Margaux winemaker Anton van Klopper.
Luckily, it was the right time of year for productive gardening and soon they were delivering 60 vegetable and bread boxes a week, their super crusty house-made sourdough loaves made from flour milled at the restaurant. Relaxed licence restrictions also enabled off-premise sales of wine from their wine store, all of it ordered online.
Now when their customers order dishes such as garden vegetables with barley and beef tongue, or maize with greens and nettles, all the vegetable components are from the Aristologist’s own garden: “We’ve provided all our own vegetables for the past year,” Tom adds. Open for lunch Friday to Sunday, dinner Saturday and Sunday. Summertown Aristologist, 1097 Greenhill Road, Summertown; phone 0477 410 105.
It was similar thinking at Fino Seppeltsfield and the recently opened Fino Vino in Adelaide, where co-owner’s chef David Swain and front of house manager Sharon Romeo had opened their doors only a few months before the coronavirus struck. But it was Fino Seppeltsfield the first to go down, having been visited by a group of American wine tourists who sparked a virus shutdown in the Barossa, the first in the state.
“We were all ready for a big wedding, fully stocked up, and there was a massive shutdown with no warning,” David says. “It was really very scary and highly stressful.”
City restaurant Fino Vino in particular didn’t have a menu that suited takeaway dishes, but Swain and Romeo looked at how big restaurant chains such as the Merrivale group were adapting and came up with the idea of a weekend Fino at Home, providing menus to feed a small family over a weekend. At its heart was a pie – duck, chicken, beef with shiraz, with house made charcuterie and Italian pickles to start with Fino bread, followed by soup and ending with a simple dessert.

JobKeeper was no help for the newly-engaged casual staff, so Fino Vino was able to take on some of the permanent Seppeltsfield staff, who remain at the restaurant – with David now back at the stoves, Sharon running the floor and a menu that harks back to their early days at Fino Willunga, with dishes such as crusty topped braised rabbit with poached loin, rice and morcilla (perfectly paired with sherry); or pan-seared Brussels sprouts with lentils and almonds. Open for lunch Thursday and Friday, dinner Wednesday to Saturday. Fino Vino, 82 Flinders Street, Adelaide; phone (08) 8232 7019.
For acclaimed Thai chef Nu Suandokmai, ironically the pandemic couldn’t have arrived at a more convenient time, just as he and his two partners were reassessing the way forward for their highly successful restaurant Lantern by Nu.
“The break enforced by COVID 19, whilst extremely difficult for the entire hospitality industry, has provided a great opportunity to re-focus Lantern by Nu, reassess the way we look after our customers, improve our service standards and provide an even more satisfying Thai dining experience,” says Nu, who has now assumed sole ownership of the restaurant.
The menu has been condensed from what Suandokmai says was too extensive an offering. It still includes favourites such as pad Thai and slow-cooked beef cheek with green curry paste but now focuses even more on authentic Thai street food cooking that will bring a delicious sense of nostalgia to older customers of the style of cooking Nu featured at his original restaurant, Nu’s, in Gouger Street 20 years ago.
Originally able to seat 120, Lantern by Nu has a variety of seating options including an outdoor courtyard and herb garden and can still seat up to 83 diners.
New dishes include hor mok ta-lay (steamed mixed seafood with red curry mousse, chilli and kaffir lime leaves); tod mun khao pod (feather light corn fritters); gai luisan (chargrilled chicken with lemongrass and sawtooth coriander); and pla dad deaw tod (an extraordinary dish to share of deep fried sun-dried market fish with a northern Thai green chilli dip, pork crackers and an array of fresh vegetables). Open for lunch Friday, dinner Wednesday to Sunday. Lantern by Nu, 10 Selby Street, Adelaide; phone 0491 173 802.