Ben Revi

It’s incredibly difficult to find a decent cup of coffee west of King William Street these days after dark. Aside from some of the elite dining establishments, most of the good food has disappeared too. And while there are divey nightclubs, there’s a surprising dearth of really nice bars. But then there’s Casablabla, which magically ticks each of these boxes with style. Casablabla - "multicultural tapas lounge bar" - took over the corner shop space on Leigh Street, just off Hindley, from Sarah’s Café. Like Sarah’s, it’s primarily a modern restaurant, this time with a Spanish theme. But it’s also a cocktail bar, tapas lounge, function room, beer garden and Latin dance classroom. On Friday and Saturday nights it’s bustling, with a stream of unusual (and great) DJs providing an energetic backdrop to a range of cocktail pleasures. There’s pizza Thursday through Saturday – on Thursday night, you can get it for $10. And Tuesday night is paella night, with a short menu of $10 cocktails, a tasty wine list and Latin dance classes on the mezzanine. That paella is absolutely delicious; it comes in traditional (seafood) and vegetarian varieties for $15 a plate. There's a tapas menu offering a little something for everyone at prices ranging from $7 to $12. As always, we recommend the haloumi, but the dip and pita looked nifty as well. From the cocktail menu, the orange margarita stands out, all tang and sweetness with a little kick at the end. Upstairs, a suave expert takes a range of ent

Supermild has long been an indispensable part of Adelaide's bar scene. Ten years ago you would stumble down the stairs and collapse at the room's extremely long table for cocktails and conversations; however, despite keeping that same table, the same corner bar and the same barely-there lighting, the venue is almost unrecognisable these days. In its previous life, it was an after-work drinks haven with a long and enthusiastic cocktail menu to help ease the 9-5 strain. Now, Supermild's target demographic is the under-20s. The old hip-hop and Motown records have been replaced by a young DJ playing Franz Ferdinand from a MacBook, and despite a $5 door fee, by midnight there's a long line outside. The floor is filled with bright young clutching Coopers longnecks, while out the back smokers can can be found in the cosy beer garden beneath the prison-like red-brick towers of the Uni’s City West Campus. Those longnecks are now the distinctive item at Supermild, since at least for the moment, the cocktail menu is notably absent - apparently it's being reprinted). But don't worry; you can still order the iconic apple crumble – apple and butterscotch schnapps, lemonade and fresh lime. Three cocktail specials are listed on the blackboard behind the bar for $10 each, and 'classic cocktails' will set you back $15 though putting the staff on the spot and ordering off menu can lead to mixed results. Our bartender did fashion one quite tasty, if bitter, Campari concoction but we say hedge yo

There has been quite a lot of discussion in the arts and planning sectors in Adelaide centring around certain key terms – renewal, vibrancy – and it almost always ends up at small bars. Licensing regulations still obstruct the development of a thriving small bar culture in Adelaide; however, there is certainly a thriving demand. Udaberri – the Basque word for ‘spring’, so we’re told – has opened across the road from the similarly Spanish-themed Casablabla, at the western end of fancy cobbled Leigh Street. Udaberri operates like a stripped-down version of its larger cousin – no mains, no fishtank, no dance lessons. It’s minimalist, and it’s beautifully small. By 8pm on a Friday in its first month, the place was packed and a large queue had formed out the front door. It can be difficult to get a real sense of a place when it is at maximum capacity. For one thing, on a quieter night, the staff may not have been run quite so ragged. The room is centred around one long bar with a narrow corridor, which on the night in question was entirely given over to the crowd – staff had to scream ‘excuse me!’ every few seconds to part the seas of happy drinkers. Getting drinks was therefore something of a challenge (no fault, of course, of the lovely staff). Once Time Out did get to the bar, we were presented with a menu including wine, beer, spirits and tapas. Enquiries were made about cocktails, which are available but not advertised. It’s not hard to see why – there’s no space behind the b

The Gallery on Waymouth replaces the empty, dilapidated shopfront on Waymouth St that itself replaced the warm, homely Fad Bar several years ago. Like Fad, the Gallery is a combination of cocktail bar and art gallery. Unlike Fad, the Gallery has directed its appeal less toward the dreadlocked art-student set and more toward the suit-wearing high-flyers who flock from the many high-rise office buildings that surround it. One thing the Gallery has over its predecessor is Adelaide’s most charming rooftop bar. Overhanging foliage, luscious lighting, gas heaters and some cheerily clunky plastic furniture (plus a few seriously comfy couches) make this third-storey oasis a real treat. On a Friday night, the place is packed, the DJ is playing strange thumping mashups of early U2, and the drinks are weaved on silver trays through the ocean of besuited young professionals throwing down their Golden Ales and special cocktails. As a result, there can be delays between ordering and drinking, but there is table service to ease your impatient pain. The drinks list is small, but classy. A bottle of 2010 Dos Tinto de Tora Tempranillo, a Spanish delight, comes for $36; its subtle but tangy contents will be the toast of your office Friday party. On the cocktail side, the Caipirinha – Brazil’s national cocktail, made with cachaça (rum), sugar and lime – is like the purest essence of a G ‘n’ T despite lacking both G, and T. And if that’s not enough, a solid tapas menu soothes the stomach rumbling