Best Cafes in Adelaide

The Good The Bad and The Ugly

We have been visiting and virtually living in Adelaide cafes for over twenty years.

In a single week we visit more cafes than some people in a rural setting would visit in a year, like bar flies hanging around a bar.

This is our roundup of cafes for 2009 and the past twenty years.

NOTE : In many cafes the dangerous drug Alcohol or flesh of murdered animals is sold, served and consumed.

A note of (DRY) NO alcohol and/or (VEG) NO meat indicate better quality.

Good Cafes in central Adelaide :

1. Air Cafe on North Terrace opposite State Museum
   
2. Falafel House on Hindley Street in DAYTIME to early evening
   
3. Cafe Boulevard on Hindley Street in DAYTIME to early evening
   
4. Clearlight Wholefoods on Rundle Street (DRY,VEG)
   
5. Balena Cafe at State Museum
   
6. Prices Bakery in Southern Cross Arcade (DRY)
   
7. Cocolate on Rundle Street
   
8. Scuzzi on Rundle Street
   

Bad Cafes in central Adelaide :

1. Stag Hotel on East Terrace
   
2. McDonalds anywhere
   
3. Hungry Jacks (Burger King) anywhere
   
4. Kentucky Fried Chicken anywhere
   
5. Subway (New York City) anywhere
   
6. Donut shops anywhere
   
7. Joy Discovery off Rundle Street (DRY,VEG)
   
8. Any Cafe with loud noisy "popular music"
   
9. Any Cafe with rock hard seats
   
10. Any Cafe with non-nutritional pasta, pizza, etc
    

Ugly Cafes in central Adelaide :

1. Al Fresco on Rundle Street
   
2. East Terrace Continental
   
3. Bliss Cafe (Blitz Cafe) by Central Market
   
4. Beard Papa by Southern Cross Arcade
   
5. Cafe One in Southern Cross Arcade
   

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Cafe Reviews Expanded

Good Cafes :

Air Cafe on North Terrace opposite State Museum

We are morning People and this is the fresh place to be. From 7:30 a.m. till 11 a.m. the coffee is discounted to $2.50 for any variety. Staff are extra cordial and pleasant. High quality spaced out music often plays in the background. There's a mesmerising circular feature in the ceiling that peers up into womens' dresses in a large store above. The food we rarely try is too expensive but the budget and low price coffee and other goodies is a small price to pay for high quality. The wood floor feels and looks like the deck of a ship. There's plenty glass and tables facing a sunny direction. Chairs are wood, fully cushioned, as are the couches with adequate support. A good environment to do minor paperwork or homework.

Falafel House on Hindley Street in DAYTIME to early evening

High quality Lebanese fare that has visitors from interstate coming back with The Falafel House being one of their main reasons for re-visiting Adelaide. Try tabouli vegetarian parsley salad, date mamoul round cakes, best beans in universe, luscious lentils, OK omelettes but we avoid anywhere on Hindley Street at night, disco beat music, booze and murder meat poles that supply yiros.

Cafe Boulevard on Hindley Street in DAYTIME to early evening

This is a high class family run business with plenty warm woodwork and glass doors and windows from which to watch the wonderful collection of people near the entrance to Hindley Street. Good gourmet cakes. Four internet computers. $6 for coffee and computer for an hour. $7 for coffee and cake. $3.20 long black espresso coffee. Free coffee per five coffee purchases stamped on card. Free glass of wine with meal over $10. Music is a bit noisy at times. Plasma TV screens not too distractive. Good People Good Place.

Clearlight Wholefoods on Rundle Street (DRY,VEG)

The guy who runs this was a "Dada" or priest for Ananada Marga, then got married and is no longer a celibate priest. However, he is a recognised "Swami" Teacher Master and so the vegetarian food he carefully crafts is close to Divine, and lower in price than nearby Joy Discovery Sri Chinmoy cafe around the corner.

Balena Cafe at State Museum

This is a classy cafe with expert staff in a public place. Plenty great glass windows with green lawn, bushes and heritage one-in-the-world museum sandstone-faced building view. Good place for families. Great place for children to run around on large lawn area and chase pigeons. Many school groups in attendance on week days.

Prices Bakery in Southern Cross Arcade (DRY)

Budget good quality pies, pasties, cakes, quiches, hot/cold non-alcoholic drinks served by friendly proficient servery team. Many interesting on-a-budget people regularly come here and this can provide place for very interesting observation.

Cocolate on Rundle Street

Probably a good place to get diabetes via high sugar counts but fully cushioned sofa chairs and sofa couches are quite comfortable. No loud "popular music" noise but active conversations everywhere. Chocolate everywhere. Free large glass bottles of water. The real bit of brown in town.

Scuzzi on Rundle Street

Although this place opens later in the morning (8 to 9 a.m.) it still has wonderful tasteful furnishings, wooden padded chairs, comfortable feel. It is very popular on weekend nights. We like the unpopulated weekend morning seats. Nice classic traditional Roman / Greek plaster walls but hope they are not coloured with dried blood of the Roman arena.

Bad Cafes :

Stag Hotel on East Terrace

Enemy of Vegetarians even though Stags are Vegetarian.

McDonalds anywhere

Eating Golden Fries under the Golden Arches has given plenty people ill health. The Gold Ronald Gold McDonald House only fixes sick kids as a token gesture. One time after a terrible headache from eating Golden Fries, we asked to see ingredients of the Golden Fries and the Golden staff showed us an empty cardboard box and it read : Potatoes Dextrose Vegetable Oil. But when we asked if we could take the box away, Gold Ronald Gold McDonald staff refused to let us have it. Take a good hard look at Gold Ronald Gold McDonald sometime and perhaps you will notice a real Jerk like the other Jerks who own and manage many other World Monopoly Corporations. Supposedly Red Ronald will be "going green" in the near future and if it is like other Gold McDonald ventures, it too will be fatal fraud. Steer clear of Golden Fries under the Golden Arches : it is possible they are made of non-food or waste ingredients that just look like fried potatoes.

Hungry Jacks (Burger King) anywhere

Large amounts of deforestation occurs in many places and in Australia much natural landscape has been completely devastated by grazing of totally un-Australian animals such as sheep, cattle, camels, deer, pigs, etc. Hungry Jacks is a subsidiary of Burger King and, like other fast food junk, has almost NO vegetarian good food on the menu.

Kentucky Fried Chicken anywhere

Mashed potatoes laced with horrible chemicals such as MSG. If you have ever had a migraine headache from MSG perhaps you will feel like us and want to plop Colonel Chicken in the frying pot for a bit of a fry too, to find out what it is like to boil in oil... Finger licken' good ?

Subway anywhere

New York City junk white bread fare similar to low/no nutrition "bagel" bread.

Donut shops anywhere

Wendy's, Donut King.

Joy Discovery off Rundle Street (DRY,VEG)

This is a Sri Chinmoy zone with high-priced Indian vegetarian food. After spending years in Hare Krishna Crossways budget progressive price cafes we became used to good deals on Indian Hindu food. When we took a begging bowl to Joy Discovery they did not want to know us. Aphorism cards are free. Give it a go if You have plenty of money and want decent vegetarian food. We give it a bad rating because in India it would cater only to the upper caste upper class and the staff would work like slaves or similar. The same thing applies to Hare Krishna Govinda money greedy cafes.

Any Cafe with loud noisy "popular music"

Any Cafe with rock hard seats

Any Cafe with non-nutritional pasta, pizza, etc

Ugly Cafes :

These are neither Good or Bad but worthy of mediocre patronage but we avoid them because of ugly past experience or because they are too weird.

Al Fresco on Rundle Street

We were regular pleased customers in this pro-Italian pro-friendly cafe. Then the hard head manager shook the rocks in his head loose and destroyed the place with yellow plastic fast food chairs and a brown boozer lounge. If there was a door to the past or time tunnel that leads to the previous Al Fresco, we would go there again for friendly folks and good atmosphere... when the noisy "pop music" force fed to us wasn't too loud.

East Terrace Continental

It really kind of hurts to put this place down as ugly since there are some fine people here, and food quality can be good. It's just all those hard wood seats. At least they are open early Sunday morning and are more sober than the nearby boozer bars.

Bliss Cafe (Blitz Cafe) by Central Market

We once bought coffee ($3.50) after explicitly telling the manager we like good strong coffee. The coffee was real weak. When we stated it doesn't take much to make a strong coffee, the manager told us that they would charge twice as much for a strong cup ($7 to $8).
The place is in the "natural foods" business and hosts decent groups such as GreenPeace for meetings, but it just lacks fairness and value for money. Give it a miss.

Beard Papa by Southern Cross Arcade

This place is too weird : a weird beard place where you can buy a fried cream puff. Too weird... beard... buy a beard ? Beard Papa Corporate website claims no nasties in their products. As a Japanese product it might be a better seller to title the business Samurai Sweets. Give 'em a try ? Hope Ya don't die !

Cafe One in Southern Cross Arcade

This cafe near King William Street entrance was a favourite of mine especially since they made the strongest black coffee I've ever had in Adelaide for a discount price. They had nice soft couches arranged in a semi-circle with nicely tiled tables and pleasant staff. The noisy "popular music" was always too loud or obtrusive for us. Then the place became worse as the nice tiled tables were replaced with less artistic ones and a very visible large screen TV was always in customers faces. Another good cafe bites the dust.