Today, news about grass-fed beef, Heston Blumenthal gives a new Adelaide restaurant a leg-up, a huge wine tasting in the city, niche cafes, and more.
Close to home
Love beef but worry about sustainability?
An enterprising Fleurieu couple is taking strides in the environmentally responsible raising and processing of beef.
Wakefield Grange, run by Nathen and Sophie Wakefield, has become the only retail butchery outside Queensland selling certified pasture-raised beef.
They’re also the only on-farm butchery in South Australia.
Nathen hand selects the animals in the paddock; they’re sent to an abattoir in Normanville – just 12km down the road – and then aged and butchered at the Wakefield Grange boning room by Nathen, a qualified butcher as well as farmer.
Sales are made at the farm gate on South Road, Wattle Flat, or at the Adelaide Hills Farmers’ Market in Mt Barker and the Goolwa Wharf Market.
Sophie says while a lot of beef cattle are pasture-fed in SA, their farm is the only one that’s certified, so consumers can be sure no grain feed has been involved.
The cattle range freely on the lush Fleurieu pasture, and minimal handling – and trucking – means the beef is tender.
Wakefield Grange also sells lamb and hogget, raised and butchered on the farm, with free-range pork soon to be available.
For a $22 fee, the couple will also home deliver.
The Wakefield Grange farmgate.
Celebrity power
British chef Heston Blumenthal has been in town, mostly, it seems, in his role as a spruiker for the Coles supermarket chain.
But Blumenthal also took time to give the team at new Rundle Street restaurant Orana a huge boost in its opening week.
Orana seems right up the innovative Blumenthal’s culinary alley, with its emphasis on indigenous ingredients.
Orana boss Jock Zonfrillo Tweeted a pic of an intent-looking Blumenthal “eating sandalwood nuts for the first time in an ice cream sundae”.
Blumenthal also posed with the Orana team – host Aaron Fenwick was clearly chuffed.
Intriguing openings
A couple of cafes coming soon will serve distinct food markets – one has a Chinese medicinal bent, and the other will cater for fans of the “paleo” diet.
The Cairns Paleo Cafe is franchising its concept, and an Adelaide version is due to open on King William Road next year.
Followers of the paleo style of eating – sometimes described as the “caveman diet” – believe that our bodies aren’t made to eat some modern processed and engineered foods. Instead, paleo eaters focus on lean proteins, fruits and vegetables, and healthy fats from nuts, seeds, avocados, fish oil and grass-fed meat.
A different take on healthy eating is also coming soon to King William Street in the city.
The typographically challenging oNEiNCHpUNCH will be open for breakfast and lunch, with influences “ranging from Saigon to Colombia via Shanghai”.
The menu will include “Qi building snacks”, hot sauce, medicinal teas and cactus, as well as “Adelaide’s only Black Foot Chicken Superior Tonic Soup”.
Slightly more conventional is Miss Perez, a welcome new restaurant in Stirling which opened last week. It’s been launched by the owners of Jimmy’s in Crafers and the menu has a modern Spanish spin. Miss Perez is also pitching itself as a bar, with a cocktail menu and a decent range of tequilas on offer.
Heritage oil
West Terrace Cemetery is the unlikely originator of a new olive oil.
Earlier this year, a ton of fruit was harvested from the more than 50 olive trees at the cemetery, some of which date back to the 19th century. The fruit was used to produce a limited-edition cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, available from Jagger Fine Foods at the Adelaide Central Markets.
The oil is being sold to promote the cemetery’s new natural heritage self-guided trail, which focuses on the flora of the site.
Who knew the cemetery on the city’s fringe had such a diversity of plants, including the only fertile grove of quandongs in Adelaide, native apricot, mallee box, golden wattle and a range of exotics?
Giant wine tasting
We’re not sure how they’re going to squeeze them all in, but next Wednesday Adelaide’s food street of the moment – Peel Street – will host 50 South Australian wineries pouring more than 300 different wines.
From 5pm to 7.30pm the street will be closed for the giant tasting. Entry is free, but guests must show they’ve downloaded the “365 days of wine and food” app.
There will also be SA cheese and produce platters and a live DJ.
The Peel Street tasting will be similar to this event, held in Leigh Street earlier this year.
The Rewards of Patience
An excellent seventh edition of The Rewards of Patience has rolled off the presses.
Published every five years, the book is the ultimate guide to Penfolds wines and this edition, by Andrew Caillard, is very comprehensive indeed.
One of the many joys in the book is the descriptions of each vintage – which also includes a summary of the year’s key news.
So, in 1967, for example, a year which may or may not be close to the heart of The Forager, we have notes about the dry growing season and warm vintage; the addition of Clare Valley as a source for Grange grapes; Che Guevara being killed in Bolivia; and Prime Minister Harold Holt disappearing while swimming near Portsea.
Apart from this ephemera (and essential vintage info), the book includes a history of Penfolds, detailed information about the wines, a guide to collecting and drinking Penfolds wines, and timelines and tasting notes from 1951 to 2012.
It should be on every wine lover’s Christmas list.
