A lot can change in a year – and 2024 has been quite the year. The hospitality scene suffered in the face of closures and rising costs, while also coming to terms with how to address the pervasive culture of harassment in the industry. Along the way we’ve lost heavy hitters including Brid, The Summertown Aristologist and Lost in a Forrest as well as many more.

But from the challenges of the past year, new venues have sprung to life. We saw the Good Gilbert crew cement themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the city. Homegrown chefs like Kane Pollard and Tom Tilbury continue to bring earnest and considered dishes to our tables. And new bars and cellar doors prove they care just as much about the food they offer as the drinks they pour.

Here, in alphabetical order, are the new bars and restaurants in Adelaide that have caught our eye over this very long year – with a few honourable mentions.

Wilson and Isabelle Shawyer are the backbone of the Goodwood community. The pair opened wine bar Good Gilbert in 2020. Earlier this year they opened Good Burger (alongside Ashley Peek and Stephen Tzanakis). Asha, the team’s first restaurant just two doors down from Good Gilbert, followed in August. (“My biggest gripe with this area has always been that we’re by ourselves,” says Wilson. “We’ve always wanted to create a precinct; we’ve always wanted more people to open up in the area.”) Alongside business partners Scott Fox, Mel Holmes and Stephen Tzanakis, the team serves a punchy menu inspired by the common threads of Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and North African flavours. Dishes include lachuch, a spongy Yemeni flatbread served with smoky eggplant and sour mushroom salsa, herbaceous falafel with black sesame cream, and larger proteins like roast chicken spiced with ras el hanout and saffron, or lamb rump served with pearl and black barley.

When he was a kid, Tom Tilbury went to lunch at the Botanic Gardens Restaurant for his grandma’s birthday. The lunch inspired him to become a chef. Now, a couple of decades on, Tilbury is cooking in a beautifully appointed kitchen, right in the middle of the Botanic Gardens. Its menu is approachable but exceptionally executed and dripping in nostalgia. The menu features a pasty served on a crumpled tuck shop bag and a crumbed Tommy Ruff sandwich served with iceberg lettuce and mayo on white bread (with the crusts cut off). Desserts include a take on a Golden Gaytime and elevated lamingtons with quandong jam.

The Adelaide Hills is full of exciting food and drink pairings; Ondeen is one of the best of them. It’s inside a heritage Verdun homestead with spectacular panoramic views. The menu is by Topiary’s Kane Pollard, who’s bringing his locavore philosophy to the equation. And there are small-batch spirits by Full Circle. As part-owner and culinary director, Pollard’s à la carte and set menus embrace the bounty of the landscape. Opening menu highlights included brined tomato and smoked mussels on fried toast; pickled sardines served with cauliflower cream and sweet corn; and a honey malt crème caramel with fresh honeycomb. In harmony with Pollard’s closed-loop cooking, head distiller and Ondeen co-owner Rose Kentish offers multiple Full Circle spirit tastings including of vodka, gin, liqueur and whisky, as well as a non-alcoholic tasting.

This fast-paced all-day diner has a Mediterranean menu by chef Stewart Wesson who describes it as “a bit of Greek, some Cypriot and borderline Croatian cuisine with some Italian and Spanish thrown in as well”. There are meze-style grazing snacks like puffy pita (think an Adelaide’s version of Sydney’s cult Totti’s bread), sopressa and grilled octopus. Mains lean towards simple proteins.

Putting a venue on our best-of lists before it’s officially opened is unorthodox, but we’re so confident in former Hentley Farm chef Clare Falzon’s cooking that we’re willing. Falzon has teamed up with Renee de Saxe, Luke Edwards, Kirsty Kingsley and Nick Radford, who together own regional art space Wonderground Gallery, a wine label of the same name, and Mirus Vineyards to open a restaurant in a former 1922 brick schoolhouse. On the classroom’s original blackboard, specials and wine by the glass will be scrawled in chalk. Inspired by Falzon’s Maltese heritage, the menu will draw on Mediterranean cooking influenced by the island’s neighbours Sicily, North Africa and the Middle East. While the team waits on a final licence, it’s serving a limited menu of small plates and non-alcoholic drinks made by beverage director Christopher Stagg, who’s back in his native state after 25 years working in top bars across Sydney, New York and London. Currently on the menu are Spanish omelettes, pickled octopus and leek nicoise, Coorong mullet with almond and capers, and other Spanish-leaning dishes.

The 250-seat brasserie from the East End Cellars and Mother Vine team opened earlier this month with a splash. Making the launch even splashier is the calibre of the kitchen team: executive chef Baine Stubbs, who was formerly senior sous at Melbourne’s Vue de Monde; head chef at renowned Parisian restaurants Ellsworth and Clamato; and former Van Bone pastry chef Rosana Petit. Stubbs has enlisted some of the state’s top producers – Mayura Station, Section 28, Ngeringa Farms and more – to create a French-accented, modern Australian menu. Zingy hand-picked mud crab served on betel leaf sits alongside rich southern rock lobster cannelloni and, naturally for a chef with French training, a Wagyu eye fillet with sauce au poivre and pommes dauphine.

Thelma isn’t a cafe, nor is it really a bistro, but the quality and the creativity of the food served here puts it firmly in the restaurant category. It’s an all-day dining destination inside the old Brid space inspired by venues in Europe where you can have your morning coffee, grab a glass of wine and a snack, or pick up provisions and produce. The trio of James Spreadbury (service directory at Copenhagen’s Noma), Loc’s Olivia Moore and former Summertown Aristologist chef Tom Campbell shares a similar approach to food, wine and hospitality, and a deep respect for produce and provenance. The food at Thelma is best described as European country cooking, informed by what Spreadbury’s brother Tim is growing at his highly regarded small-scale market garden, Presqil. That might mean evolving, grazing-style breakfast plates – made up of bits and pieces like seasonal veggies, cheese slices, house-made sourdough and a boiled egg – or Comte tarts, escargots and savoury pizzettas. For lunch, expect nourishing, produce-led, French-leaning dishes alongside local and European wines made as purely as possible.

La Louisiane, Adelaide CBD: Former Restaurant Hubert head chef Alexis Besseau stepped up to fill a gap in Adelaide’s dining scene with a proper French bistro. The venue first opened as a pop-up (which scored a spot on our best restaurants of 2023 list) but the venue has stayed open permanently. La Louisiane is a moody underground spot serving some of the best classic French fare in Adelaide. Expect steak frites, pate en croute, Gruyere cheese soufflé, snails and crème brûlée. Also: French wines (and French varietals from local vineyards) as well as classic cocktails including a standout house Martini (which is available in a two-sip tiny ‘tini as well).

Rosemont Hall (Mr Chan & Sunnys Shop), Prospect: Rosemont Hall was gutted by a fire in 2021 that destroyed its two restaurants. After two years the venues have risen from the ashes. The capacity has doubled to 200 while retaining the same 1920s feel. Mr Chan is Shanghainese and Sunnys Shop is inspired by a sultry Phuket diner.

If you’re lucky enough to have been to Madrid you’ll know that ordering a drink in the Spanish capital will score you a plate of complimentary tapas. Expat David España Gallardo is bringing that same culture to The Parade with the new bar he opened in August. Like our other pick of the year, Bar Madrid doesn’t wait until it’s five o’clock somewhere to open. You can drop by from 8am for coffee by Hindmarsh roastery Coffee in Common, a Portuguese tart from nearby Saudade and a croissant from Magill’s Prove Patisserie, which also supplies baguettes filled with Wagyu beef or pumpkin and feta. From the afternoon on it’s all about wines – both Spanish varietals from España Gallardo’s personal collection, as well as drops from local producers like Clare Valley’s K1 and the Barossa’s Eden Hall – and small plates of pinxtos, Gildas and cured meats including imported acorn-fed jamon iberico, the “Rolls Royce of jamon”.

Not all bars are created equal and while some serve great wine and others focus on a specific spirit, Latteria does it all. It’s a bar that serves great food with an all-day menu that shifts seamlessly from lunch to aperitivo hour to dinner. The tip to navigating the menu is to go long on snacks. There is risotto al salto (risotto pan-fried until crispy and then served on a creamy parmigiano base with a chicken jus and bonito flakes); a savoury cannolo with whipped ricotta, prosciutto and spiced honey; and chargrilled octopus skewers with crispy polenta. The corner spot comes from the Osteria Oggi crew and is built around a central bar with high stools where you can pick up a tipple like a Negroni Sbagliato and the Breakfast in Milan cocktail, inspired by cappuccino and croissant.

Hills Collide Cellar Door, Summertown: When The Summertown Aristologist closed last year everyone wondered: what would open in the iconic Hills address? In July the space reopened as the Hills Collide Cellar Door. The local wine label is run by Shane Ettridge (a managing partner at CBD bar Proof and Mitchell Fitzpatrick. The pair met as kids at Mount Barker South Primary and have committed to only using fruit from the Hills to make wine. As well as drops from their label, there’s a small bar snack menu with cheese, charcuterie, terrine, anchovies, dips and bread from Thelma and an elevated toastie.

House of Vinteloper, Lobethal: On December 20, 2019, winemaker David Bowley’s 30-hectare property was razed by the Cudlee Creek bushfire. Since then, Bowley and his wife Sharon Hong have been rebuilding from the ground up. Five years on, the cellar door for their small-batch wine label, Vinteloper, is finally open. There’s a luxe tasting area, filter coffee for designated drivers, and tasting plates of Adelaide Hills produce, plus oysters fresh from Bowley’s parents’ Yorke Peninsula oyster farm.

Old Bush Inn, Willunga: In Willunga there are three pubs: the top pub, the middle pub and the bottom pub. Old Bush Inn, known for its position at the top of High Street, has been taken over by a top team – the trio behind the revitalisation of Silver Sands Beach Club. They’re working on slowly revamping the pub: the menu has had an Italian-leaning refresh and there are plans to spruce up the joint with some new rugs and a paint job.

With additional reporting by Dan Cunningham, Lily Davidson, Kurtis Eichler, Daniela Frangos, Katie Spain, Max Veenhuyzen and Tim Watts