On our recent trip to Adelaide, there was one restaurant we really wanted to dine at, Orana. We had heard so much about it for so many years and were super excited when we were able to make a reservation for dinner. It is a degustation restaurant, and there were 17 courses on our night there…17. So please sit back and enjoy the run through of all 17 courses!

Potato damper baked over hot coals on a eucalyptus branch with roast lamb butter. You read that correctly, it was roast lamb fat in the butter. The dough at the back was actually sour dough that was baked during our first few courses so we could enjoy it hot and fresh a little later.

Oyster, oxalis and boobialla. Oxalis and boobialla are types of plants and made up the dressing for the oyster.

Squid, dry aged beef, finger lime & beach succulents. This was a very interesting dish that had many textures and flavours. The native beach succulents added a really nice touch to this.

Short rib, pepper and potato pie. The most fancy party pie I have ever eaten. The pastry was perfect and short and gave a great base to the perfectly seasoned pie filling.

Foragers feast agnolotti, a very delicate mushroom agnolotti.

Spencer gulf prawn & powdered Davidson plum, the sweetness of the prawn matched really well with the tart little native plums. Beneath the prawns are Riberry, macadamia blossom and tea tree. This was a very interesting little sour berry salad.

Sea urchin & fermented lamb and a jerked kangaroo tendon. The flavour of the sea urchin was quite rich and not as fishy as I thought it would be. It was my first time eating sea urchin. The jerked kangaroo tendon had the texture of a prawn cracker and not much flavour itself which is why on the base of the tendon was a native fruit paste.

My favourite course of the evening, hands down. Soup soup, which was a crocodile consomme with Australian botanicals on the side to heighten the sense of smell. The consomme was so dellicate, flavourful and perfectly balanced. In fact it was so good, I actually asked if I could have another serving of it!

Kolrabi, dorrigo, quandong & lemon myrtle, a delicious little salad that was presented so beautifully.

Wallaby, smoked wattleseed miso, avocado & emu bush. So tender and a flavour combination like nothing I have tasted before, but in a good way.

Marron, native honey macadamia & green ants, the green ants just added the hint of sour and tang to this otherwise sweet and buttery albeit savory dish. This was another one of my favourite dishes of the evening

My second serving of the crocodile consomme!

The sourdough once it had been baked, along with the return of the roast lamb butter.

Fire pit flathead, smoked potato, leek & eucalyptus, a dish where all the elements perfectly complimented one another in order to bring out the best in each flavour. This was the final savoury course of our menu.

So with that onto the sweets.

Jillungin tea with paperbark wafers, the tea was just that hint of sweet and the paper bark wafers were really lovely. So thin and crispy.

Mango, macadamia & coconut, just as it says! The handle was actually a little coconut wafer. This type of dessert is what is known as an Anna dessert as it is not too sweet and has fruit in it!

Set buffalo milk, strawberry and eucalyptus, the second dessert was much richer than the first, but still delicious. I couldn’t manage to eat all of the set buffalo milk, but I did enjoy the strawberry and eucalyptus sauce.

So there you have it, 17 courses. It was a lovely evening and service was great too. If you enjoy trying new things as well as things you know and love in different ways then Orana is for you. We also paired matching drinks (a few dishes were actually matched with a cider in place of wine which was different) and I think it is worth it to do so. We had a great time here and I would totally recommend it if you do enjoy something a little different. Oh one final thing, the crockery that everything is served on was beautiful. I love crockery as alluded to in the Japan trip, so this was also a highlight for me!