Before Leigh Street became “Leigh Street,” it had a massive space for rent, where Semaphore eatery Sarah’s Sisters Sustainable Café once was.
Before Leigh Street turned into branded vibrant and given a few works of art, closed to vehicles, and opened to nearby wine show-off takeovers, it was a thoroughfare for human beings legging it from the teach station to work inside the CBD.
Over many conversations with Julie Barnes of Leigh Street Luggage, we learned of an ancient Leigh Street – an avenue where motors may want to pressure both ways, where vehicles may even mount the scale back and terrify the odd traveler at the same time as they have been left idling, door ajar as the motive force quick dashed in to pick up dry cleaning from Alec, the barber.
Julie’s reminiscences of the road painted it in a romantic light, but in 2009 – once I moved into the neighborhood – it turned useless. You couldn’t get first-rate pintxos or vinos to save your life.
But then came the Irishman. From Bali, Rory Bourke landed several delivery containers of statues, furnishings, textiles, crockery, cutlery, light shades, and wood. He and his enterprise partners set about constructing Casablabla at 12 Leigh Street. The bar and restaurant became unlike anything I’d seen before, and it became a direct fulfillment with its stomach-dancing snake charmers, taiko drummers, flamenco performances, and traveling song acts.
Casablanca had a first-rate kitchen and excellent booze. It employed a diverse group of young people from unique cultural backgrounds and essentially felt like WOMAD each night of the week. Casablanca no longer best changed Leigh Street. However, it made Adelaide’s experience exceptional to me.
I’m writing about Casablabla because Solstice Media—the writer of InDaily, SEALIFE, and CityMag—is launching SA Food Month in July.
Throughout July, our three mastheads may be devoted to sharing the stories that define Adelaide and South Australia’s unique culinary subculture – the past, gift, and destiny of food in this notable nation. SA Food Month will have fun with the unsung heroes and peek under the hood of several supercharged meals and beverage achievement tales.
We’ll launch a brand new podcast for the month with insightful, high-intensity interviews and a chain of lists to help you navigate your way up, down, through, and right out of town to explore South Australia’s great regions. SA Food Month will rejoice in the actual grit of our super terroir.
We won’t be flying inside the stunning humans to take snapshots of themselves at our first-class venues. Instead, we’ll invite you to get out and into those same venues to discover how on-hand and amenable our high-quality cooks are.
Your gastronomic adventure in South Australia can lead you to a wonderfully baked pasty in Yankalilla as easily as it can to a charcoal-cooked damper roll on Rundle Street.
One thing ends in some other, and some other.
Leigh Street is a famous vacation spot in our town that—pretty really—didn’t exist in the same manner it does now, simply ten years ago. And while the internationally presented bar Pink Moon Saloon only opened three and a half years ago, it’s crucial to apprehend the records and how each of your preferred locations took proposals from any other.
We wouldn’t have Coffee Branch if Casablabla didn’t take out that massive lease and fill the void with young people and dancing. We wouldn’t have Udaberri if its owners couldn’t meet at Coffee Branch to hatch plans and paintings at Casablanca or find their indoor fashion designer at Press*.
