Restaurant Botanic

Where to Eat Aboriginal Cuisine in Adelaide, Australia

"In a gazebo-like space in the middle of the Adelaide Botanic Garden, executive chef Justin James orchestrates a wildly inventive four-hour, 29-course tasting menu that includes at least 30 native ingredients. He serves emu meat that has been cured with sunrise limes; tops oysters from Coffin Bay, a seafood haven in South Australia, with fermented desert-lime pulp and green ants; and wraps marron in leaves of a shrub called oldman saltbush. The presentation is theatrical, with dishes perched on leaves, tucked into shrubbery, skewered on branches, wrapped in tree bark, and resting on rocks that are meant to be licked to heighten the umami flavor profile. Even the sparkling wine is flavored with lemon aspen and mountain pepperleaf, two Indigenous botanicals." - Veronica M. Stoddart