Fino Seppeltsfield: restaurant review

Old world/new world hybrid; something that shows respect to the traditions of its surrounds, in one of Australia’s best-known homes of sherry-style wines; a smart way of bringing one of South Australia’s consistently terrific regional restaurants, Fino, from its Willunga base to a new Barossa outpost; and a way for co-proprietor, service whiz and wine lady Sharon Romeo to meld her Italian heritage with a new, ambitious venture in a historic winery with a specific reputation.

At so many levels, it makes sense.

Seppeltsfield has been reborn. It is again a most beautiful old compound of sandstone buildings and landscaped spaces, and getting Romeo and partner/chef David Swain up here from McLaren Vale was the smartest move.

Swain’s simple, wine-centric, locally sourced (long before you got sick of that phrase) food, and Romeo’s lusty enthusiasm for vino and hospitality, fit this glorious former winery space like a bum in a basket press. If you are a hungry adult who gets off on wine culture, food and history, it’s an amusement park.

Romeo will sit you down at a raw timber table and if she can’t sell you that Negrosso, she might interest you in a Seppeltsfield fino from that barrel sitting on the bar. (This is a pretty good Plan B.) She’ll drop a hand-made pottery bowl of dark, impressive sourdough on the table, another with a pat of lovely butter, a seriously good wine list and menus, directories to Swain’s uncomplicated yet always impressive regional food. A pure country light will filter through the clerestory windows through exposed white trusses to illuminate your table like a message from above, and everything will seem right. Is this the best place in Australia for a long lunch or what?

Delicious school prawns and charred sardines bubble away in a Spanish manner with olive oil, garlic and chilli in a terracotta dish. Another pot with crisp-shelled yet spongy/squeaky Barossa haloumi in some oil, served straight from the oven with fresh coriander, pumpkin seeds and a wedge of lime. Faultless stuff. Great produce, balanced composition, from kitchen to table. Wham, bam, why do so many restaurants get this bit wrong, ma’am?

Golden brown “bacon broth”, jewelled with oil like a Cantonese soup, comes with a local story almost too good to be true, involving smoked rare breed pork bones, verdantly green cavolo nero, Clare flour for the “Barossa Birds” chicken tortellini and more of that poached chook breast in the soup. Regardless of provenance, it’s a profoundly satisfying dish.

Leaves of assertively cold-smoked kingfish fillet go head to head with the broth for brilliance, served with wakame, a scattering of brown local rice and charred pickled baby onions that throw sweetness and acid into the mix perfectly.

Main courses may almost be too simple for some. A Hutton Vale lamb pie uses tongue, smoked bacon and shoulder meat in a delicious wet mix inside a suet pastry base. There’s a light, clean gravy on the plate and buttered Savoy cabbage with chopped chives. It’s the essence of homeliness and country cooking.

A piece of seriously good roasted snapper fillet gets a mattress of potato-heavy brandade and a side salad of charred leeks, SA capers and their leaves, and frisee lettuce.

Some will consider sweet stuff. Experience at Fino Willunga tells me this will be consistent with the quality of the savoury stuff. And if Romeo can talk you into an old Seppeltsfield fortified at this point, she’s just doing her job. Let her.

Address: 730 Seppeltsfield Road, Seppeltsfield SA

Phone: (08) 8562 8528

Web: fino.net.au

Hours: Lunch daily; dinner Fri, Sat

Typical prices: Entrees $20; mains $37; desserts $15

Like this? Try… Cullen, Margaret River; Du Fermier, Trentham, Vic

Summary: Country contentment

Stars: 4 out of 5

Source: The Australian, John Lethlean, July 11^th 2015