Restaurants

With more than 600 restaurants, pubs, and cafes, Adelaide boasts more dining spots per capita than anywhere else in Australia. Many cluster in areas such as Rundle Street, Gouger Street, and North Adelaide -- where you'll find almost every style of cuisine you can imagine. For cheap noodles, laksas, sushi, and cakes, head to Adelaide's popular Central Markets (tel. 08/8203 7494), behind the Hilton Adelaide between Gouger and Grote streets.

Glenelg has a host of nice cafes, including Café Zest, 2A Sussex St. (tel. 08/8295 3599), which serves baguettes and bagels; and Café Blu, Oaks Plaza Pier Hotel, 16 Holdfast Promenade (tel. 08/8350 6688), which has good pizzas.

As well as the restaurants featured below, other favorites include Gaucho's Argentinian Restaurant, 91 Gouger St. (tel. 08/8231 2299), which carves up grilled meat on weekday lunchtimes and daily from 5:30pm to late; Shiki, a top-rank Japanese restaurant in the Hyatt Regency Adelaide (tel. 08/8238 2382), which is open Tuesday to Saturday from 6 to 10pm; and Ned Kelly's Restaurant, 26 O'Connell St., North Adelaide (tel. 08/8361 9994), which has good steaks and Australian country music playing in the background. It's open for dinner Tuesday to Sunday from 6 to 10pm.

Because of South Australia's healthy wine industry, you'll find that many of the more expensive restaurants have extensive wine lists -- though with spicier foods, it's probably wiser to stick with beer. Many Adelaide restaurants allow diners to bring their own wine (BYO), but most charge a steep corkage fee to open the bottle -- A$6 (US$5.40/£2.70) or so is not uncommon.

Something Different: Dining Tours -- Adelaide's Top Food and Wine Tours (tel. 08/8263 0265; www.topfoodandwinetours.com.au) offers a range of food-based tours, including both dawn and midmorning tours of the Central Market. Dawn Tours cost A$48 (US$43/£22) for adults and A$25 (US$23/£12) for kids, and start at 7:15am on Tuesday and Thursday through Saturday.