The Australian Tuscany

Australia/N.Zealand, culinary cultures — By Bob Riel on December 26, 2007 at 3:22 pm

The Italian region of Tuscany has inspired legions of fans because of the area’s natural beauty, culture, food and wine. Now the region of southeastern Australia around Adelaide is beginning to draw similar raves, according to this travel article in the New York Times.

“We searched all over the world for where we could start the kind of restaurant I always wanted to go to,” said Jim Carreker, who left his job as a chief executive in Silicon Valley to start the much-lauded gastronome hotel, the Louise, in the Barossa Valley in Australia last year. “When we came to Adelaide, we were stunned to discover the area had the best of everything: great wine growing, people who raised good livestock, fantastic fruits and vegetables. It’s like the Australian version of Tuscany except we also have extraordinary seafood.”

Two decades ago, Adelaide, the capital of the state of South Australia, was considered the dowdy wallflower to its lively coastal siblings, Melbourne and Sydney…But now South Australia’s capital, nestled along the Pacific Coast and sprawled against the garden greenbelt of the gentle River Torrens, has become the colorful cosmopolitan hub of Australia’s culinary revolution — 51 percent of the country’s wine is produced in the region, while the Adelaide Hills are Australia’s fruit and veggie basket.

Add to that picture the multiethnic population that has swarmed into this rapidly growing city of 1.1 million, and it seems inevitable that a teeming cafe and restaurant scene would arise. In fact, Adelaide claims the country’s highest number of restaurants per person.