With a thoughtful food and wine offering informed by sustainable growers and a gun team of hospitality operators behind it, this versatile bistro is the Adelaide Hills’ cosiest new retreat.
The fine-tuned wine list is less directly guided by the “natural” mantra than sibling bar Loc, but the thoughtfully chosen selection sways towards local and international producers who either grow their own organic and biodynamic fruit or source fruit that’s grown with sustainable and regenerative methods. By-the-glass options are mainly friends from around the Adelaide Hills like Scintilla, Commune of Buttons, Jean Bouteille, Whip Wines and the Other Right, but if you want to choose a bottle from the broader list (predominantly wines from Spreadbury’s cellar), Olivia, who works the floor at Thelma, is more than equipped to steer you in the right direction.
Not-wine drinkers are also well catered for, with Wildflower’s organic table beer, Peroni Red cans, Commune of Buttons vermouth and the non-alcohol likes of NON and TINA, plus locally roasted Kindred Coffee.
For those swinging by in the morning, good luck choosing between the grazing-style farmer’s breakfast (a plate of local salami, aged cheese, jammy egg, pickled veg and house sourdough), puffy-edged pizzetta and a selection of tarts (Comté cheese! Jiggly custard and bay leaf! Malty burnt bread and coffee!). Then grab a house-baked sourdough baguette (a mix of organic stone-ground flours) to take home.
Things get pleasingly unpredictable at lunchtime, with a daily-changing Euro-style menu very much designed to highlight all of the produce. You might find nannygai wing with broad-bean miso, dry-aged beef with sunflower seeds and a vegetable of the day, such as celeriac or kohlrabi, charcuterie off-cuts wrapped in broccoli-leaf dolma, or a very home-style Italian dish of tripe, chickpeas and cheese whey. It’s ingredient-first, country-style food informed by rural European traditions. Tip: bring a couple of friends so you can work your way through the menu.
