Great Central Market Stalls and Shops
Angelakis Bros. Seafood Poultry and Game
Barossa Fine Foods
Big Table - If coffee is your poison
Central Mushroom House
Charlesworth Nuts
Con's Fine Food
Fred McMahon Fruit and Vegetable
Gourmet to Go
GQ - Good Quisine
Kate's Patisserie - The house of sourdough
Leo's Gourmet Cheeses
Lucias Fine Foods and Pizza & Spaghetti Bar
Perfect Cup - Gourmet Coffees and Fine Teas
PhotoCo Camera House
Standom Smallgoods Butchers

Why not take a tour of the Central Market with Adelaide Central Market Tours

Central Market Map
Hover your mouse over this map to find the location of each Market Stall and Shop
Charlesworth NutsLucia's Pizza and Spaghetti BarLucia's Fine FoodsStandom Smallgoods ButchersPhotoCo Camera HouseBig TableBarossa Fine FoodsFred McMahon Fruit and VegetableLeo's Gourmet CheesesGQ - Good QuisineGourmet To GoKate's Patisserie

Keith Conlon visits the Central Market

"We've got the best! We've got the best in the world!"

Michael the market stall spruiker certainly stands by his fruit and veg. Adelaide's Central Market is a cornucopia in everyway, with product familiar and chaotic, prices from premium to cheap and characters everywhere. There's nothing to match this 200+ collection of stalls and shops in any other Australian City.

Its 135 years since eight market gardeners wheeled their barrows up from the old East End site and set up here. Now, there are a couple of dozen fruit and vegetable stalls alone, completed by 6 bakeries, 3 cheese specialists, 6 gourmet and another 6 continental stalls and so on. It is a permanent food festival between Grote and Gouger Streets in the centre of the city.

Does Australia have regional cuisines? The French call it 'terroire'.... loosely translating, we might say the food and wine is better on our side of the fence than yours. The chefs and food writers and TV Cooks of the world often try a little practical research in the market, when they're in town.

The Central Market is also a treasured spot for adventurous eaters. A couple of generations now have tried their first marinara at Lucia's or their first Laksa at the Malacca Corner. They are now pillars of certainty in the ever-evolving Market.

At the other end of the market, the Big Taste (it's actually more of an L-shaped bar stool bench) pioneered the baguette for lunch in Adelaide. They're every where now, but five years ago, Leonie opened her retro-country-cow-funk outlet and started putting the joy's of the market in interesting combinations into a bread stick. They're another celebration of good ever-changing food in the Market.

We even spied Ian Parmenter, the 'Consuming Passions' TV food enthusiast, doing a little stocking up. As the great stimulus behind Tasting Australia, he chose Adelaide as the site because of its fine food and wine reputation.

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