PROFILE BY BEST RESTAURANTS
Chef Jamie Vigar's food is reason alone to check into the Majestic Roof Garden Hotel. Then you can resolve the pleasant indecision faced when checking out his menu. Try a different dish every night and stay at one of Adelaide's hippest hotels in the process. You may also bump into the odd film crew. Famed South Australian director Scott Hicks used these majestic digs for scenes in his latest movie. If his crew ate in-house, they would have been impressed with what Vigar is doing in the kitchen. Culshaw's Grill has an admirable menu that shares traits with the hotel. Efficient in size, its attention to taste and panache serves visitors well.
Every opportunity is used to add dimensions of flavour to dishes, but not to the point of confusion. The "rich, double-cooked duck leg curry" is served with coconut pilaf, crisp dried onion and fresh coriander. A pork fillet prospers just as well with charred apple, pecan and camembert wrapped in bacon. Seafood includes a cracker-sounding salt and pepper baby barramundi, served with lime and chilli butter and Cajun-spiced fries. More soothing is the garlic prawn risotto tickled with saffron, lemon thyme and champagne cream. For a true Culshaw's Grill experience, tuck into a grain-fed Coorong Angus beef fillet on potato and garlic crush topped with prosciutto. Crispy Szechuan red onion rings come with the scotch fillet – it would be great however to have them available as a side. Desserts are some of the best in town. How does a coffee cream brulee with a soft butterscotch centre and King Island cream sound? Take a walk afterward around the hotel's namesake roof garden with sweeping views of the Adelaide hills. Its fishpond is swimming with golden beauties that look as content as you will be after dining downstairs.
Roz Taylor