Too often, visitors to Australia overlook Adelaide, favoring splashier cities, such as Sydney and Melbourne, or breezing through en route to nearby destinations, like nature-rich Kangaroo Island. They're missing out. Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, lives up to its reputation as a quiet, mellow town famous for the green necklace of parks and gardens that encircles its downtown. But look closer and you'll discover an unusually vibrant and cosmopolitan place — 30 percent of its residents were born overseas — buoyed by a surge of sophisticated restaurants and shops that have opened in the past few years.
Locals call it the Twenty-Minute City, and soon after setting out from my hotel, the Medina Grand Adelaide Treasury (double rooms from $195; 2 Flinders St.; 011-61-8-8112-0000; medina.com.au), set in a 19th-century treasury building with sandstone walls and barrel-vaulted brick ceilings, I understood why. Downtown Adelaide is just one square mile; nothing is more than twenty minutes away by foot. I started my weekend the way area chefs and foodies begin their mornings: browsing at the Victorian-era stalls at the sprawling 139-year-old Central Market (between Gouger and Grote Sts.; 011-61-8-8203-7494), a kaleidoscope of colors and textures. In a few steps I passed artfully arranged kiwis, carrots and pineapples at countless grocers, handmade cheeses at the Smelly Cheese Shop, freshly shucked oysters at Samtass Brothers Seafood and house-cured prosciutto at the Marino Meat and Food Store.
Not surprisingly, considering the bounty on display at the market, Adelaide has a high concentration of top restaurants — more per capita than Sydney or Melbourne. The Grange (233 Victoria Sq., in the Hilton; 011-61-8-8237-0698; thegrangerestaurant.com.au), widely regarded as the city's finest eatery, is headed by Cheong Liew, who lays claim to inventing Australian fusion cuisine in the early seventies. The chef continues to push boundaries with creative dishes like his Four Dances of the Sea, made with fifty ingredients, each one representing a stage in his culinary development (cured snook in honor of the Japanese friend who taught him how to preserve fish, for example). Across the street is Àuge (22 Grote St.; 011-61-8-8410-9332; auge.com.au), one of Australia's best Italian restaurants; the handmade chestnut flour gnocchi, with Tuscan kale and toasted hazelnuts, is without peer.
The west end of Gouger Street, a stone's throw from Grote, recently evolved into a hub for late-night eating and drinking. The new Concubine (No. 132; 011-61-8-8212-8288), a chic Chinese restaurant with birdcages hanging from the ceiling like sculptures, serves modern Chinese dishes, such as spicy mussels in brown bean and Chivas Regal sauce. Next door are Mesa Lunga (No. 140; 011-61-8-8410-7617; mesalunga.com), its communal tables packed with stylish Aussies chowing down on Spanish tapas under faux-antler chandeliers, and the dark and sexy Sangria Bar, whose chalkboard touts twelve versions of the drink it's named for.
While zigzagging down the city's tree-lined streets, I stumbled on plenty of other finds. I ogled hunting boomerangs and ghostly tin masks in the eight-year-old Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery, in the South Australia Museum (North Terr.; 011-61-8-8207-7500; samuseum.sa.gov.au), home to the world's largest collection of Aboriginal artifacts. I treated myself to a massage at Jurlique (Burnside Village shopping center 40B, 447 Portrush Rd.; 011-61-8-8379-9073; jurlique.com.au), the renowned Adelaide-based beauty company whose products are made with locally grown organic herbs. I visited glassblowers hard at work at JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design (19 Morphett St.; 011-61-8-8410-0727; jamfactory.com.au), which displays glass art and jewelry by hometown artisans. At Bauhaus (257 Rundle St.; 011-61-8-8215-0003), a shop that resembles the living room of a bohemian world traveler, I fell in love with almost every item but left with only a hand-stamped leather journal from India and an embossed-leather Moroccan ottoman. Next time I'll come with bigger suitcases. ~JAIME GROSS
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