date of visit: Friday 8 Jan 2016
Back in winter I was invited to a menu launch dinner at the Moseley and never blogged about it. I’m guessing it was because I was busy writing because I was pretty impressed with the meal.
Sufficiently impressed, it turns out, that it’s a venue I’ve kept at the back of my mind but not managed to visit on my own dime … until a recent Friday night.
I’d love to tell you it was planned, but sadly … it was a case of me ringing around places at 3pm on Friday afternoon searching for that all elusive table for two.
The Moseley is part of the RD Jones group which owns quite a few venues across Adelaide. In a previous life, it was The Dublin, before being taken over and given a reno and a much needed rejigged reputation. Now there is a slick downstairs dining area and the bar area is upstairs. At the very front there is casual seating, so you don’t feel like you’re eating your dinner with the whole of Moseley Square peering at you!
The very first impression that I had of our evening was my phone call to book. This is something that a lot of venues manage to mess up but whoever took my booking set the standard service-wise for our whole Moseley experience. Service was always attentive and competent – and that lasted the whole way through the meal, including when it came time to pay the bill.
As we were without Master 5 we treated ourselves to a whole TWO courses each AND coffees. This is very very exciting for us – while I have plenty of opportunities for lovely meals out, usually Andy is at home and when we do eat out, it’s as a family so it’s always early and super quick.
After some bread, Andy started with the spicy squid and I chose the beef tartare. The spicy squid got the thumbs up and the beef tartare was very good. It had BAGS of flavour – packing a serious caper-fuelled punch. It was also a very generously sized portion … although the parsnip crisps with which it was served weren’t quite as generous. With beef tartare you do need plenty of something crispy to break up what can otherwise quite a homogeneous texture experience. The dish is billed as gluten free and I understand wanting to keep it like that but the plate really did need either more crisps or some croutons.
For main course, Andy ordered the fish and chips with mushy peas and I went for the ricotta gnocchi with kale (yay!), broccolini and almonds. This was another generously sized dish and had a really lovely touch of chilli heat to it. The gnocchi were also light and tender. Although I didn’t notice it immediately, it was quite salty and this really built up while eating it.
The fish and chips were also a success but it would be fantastic if the Moseley could invest a bit of menu real estate in telling us the provenance of the fish. We did ask and were told it was local but I’m not entirely sure I can figure out what ‘local’ cod is …
After drinks (2 beers, 2 glasses of wine) and coffee the bill came in at around $120 which we didn’t think was too bad at all. While the food was not flawless, it is certainly food I would bother to seek out and eat again. It is absolutely fantastic to see a pub in a popular location actually do some interesting food and not succumb to lazy menu writing.
The Moseley gets a thumbs up: somewhere we’d return and I’d be happy to recommend.
The Moseley Bar & Kitchen
11 Moseley Square
Glenelg SA 5045
phone: 08 8295 3966