Go to Market
A deep dive into Adelaide’s Central Market — the beating heart of South Australia’s food scene.
Originally published in Lodestars Anthology’s Australia (Revisited) issue.
Mark Gleeson, founder of Food Tours Australia. Photo: Marina Pliatsikas.
Take a look around the cavernous Adelaide Central Market on a bustling weekday morning, and there’s not a single soul standing on the sidelines.
There’s an energy in the air to rival the busiest street markets in Europe or Asia – people shouting over the top of each other, laughing with stallholders, diving headfirst into barrels of fruit, sipping espressos standing up, grabbing handfuls of things, smelling them, tasting, weighing, bagging. The buzz is palpable and the aromas are heady. There’s no coy browsing here.
Miraculously, there’s somehow absolutely nothing intimidating or pretentious about it either.
“Over the last 150 years it’s really created a village,” says Mark Gleeson of Food Tours Australia.
It’s 11:30am and we’re sipping prosecco and chatting over a plate of buttery soft prosciutto and nduja while perched barside at the iconic Lucia’s, where the menu and decor has remained largely unchanged since it was opened by Italian immigrants in 1957.
“There’s just no other place like this in the country,” he says.
It’s impossible to disagree.
Here, you’re just as likely to find cheese from obscure mountain villages in Switzerland – the best stocked by Valerie Henbest’s acclaimed Smelly Cheese Shop – as you are to find baked goods made by customers who’ve been shopping here for so long they’ve become suppliers themselves.
Mark, who’s also been a stallholder here for over 30 years, sells everything from porcini mushrooms from a mate’s backyard (which are so big they occasionally make national news headlines) to heavenly brownies that we devour in a single mouthful – which we later find out are delivered fresh every morning by a teenage boy who’s saving up for his uni degree.
“There are no wankers here. It’s not too polished,” explains Mark.
Hotel Indigo, Adelaide Central Markets. Photo: Marina Pliatsikas
However, if it is some polish you need after a long day of chatting with providores and filling your calico shopping bags to the brim, the recently-opened Hotel Indigo Adelaide Central Market is strolling (or is it rolling?) distance away. Everything about it, from its interior architecture and decor, to its strong environmental sustainability focus, pays homage to the Market.
It’s truly the perfect place to sleep off your truffle-brie-and-champagne-induced coma. Although, with its own fabulous rooftop bar and restaurant, serving both drinks and dishes prepared with ingredients sourced right from the Market itself, you may be leaving with more of a food coma than the one you arrived with.