With the restaurant this year included in the Australian Financial Review’s listing of SA restaurants, and its involvement in Tasting Australia with a couple of long-table dinners on May 5 and 20, not to mention popular cooking classes conducted in its kitchen, it seems a good time to find out what you get for your money – and reflect on why the place is not packed every night that it’s open, as it should be.

And that leads to considerations not just of price but, more pertinently, of value for money.

Firstly, the building. Papazahariakis bought the Chloe’s property, at the foot of Norwood Parade, in 1985. It had been totally gutted so he had to totally restore it, with an intent to make it look as authentic as an 1876 Victorian bluestone mansion could be – everything real, of the period, from the mirrors to the chandeliers, even many of the chairs and tables: “As if they’d been there forever.”

Much of the art and furnishing Papazahariakis had bought for himself, but by the time Chloe’s was ready to open he’d run out of cash and into the restaurant it went: French mirrors that had once graced a Scottish castle, an 18^th-century table that seats 22, chandeliers from England and France, even the first ever infusion coffee maker, dated 1844. Paintings such as a museum-quality Louis Tannert now hang in a private dining room named after it. And so the list goes on.

Secondly, the service. This is old-school style, not what you find in many places now. Papazahariakis, who helped write Regency Park’s curriculum for food and wine service and is a leading force in hospitality training, will welcome you. He’ll then hand you over to Sebastian Marguet, who trained in Strasbourg and worked at the London Hilton, all old-school class.

Thirdly, the food. Chef Johnny Triscari has been at Chloe’s for about 10 years and his cooking has evolved with the times. He does an eight-course degustation ($125) with matching wines ($75), which is not a commitment everyone can, or would want to, make. The a la carte entrees are mostly around $30, main courses $40, so it’s getting up there in price, but when you compare what you get at places charging only a few dollars per course less, you might consider it very fair value.

After choosing from three house-made sourdough breads you might start with an exquisite complementary amuse bouche of cured ocean trout with toasted sesame, a dill and yoghurt emulsion and tapioca cracker (also served as an entrée), before moving on to a porcini mushroom risotto – a slab of fresh, local porcini on a perfectly-cooked risotto containing more dried porcini, with a truffle emulsion. The flavours are deep, rich and earthy; it’s tempting to order it again and to hell with the rest of the meal.

An entrée of two massive, crunchy, locally-caught king prawns comes with a jiao zi pastry, rather like a rice-flour Chinese ravioli filled with barbecued corn, with prawn essence and a slice of grilled cotechino sausage. Not quite sure why the sausage was there but it worked well enough and it’s a good dish.

This writer has never been one for sorbets between courses, preferring a simple leafy salad if anything, but others will disagree, especially when offered a simple, pristine quenelle of peach sorbet with slices of strawberry guava from the garden, with a single violet on the side. It looked so pretty it could melt while you admired it.

A long, thick duck breast, crisp skinned and very tender, sitting on a sprawl of chargrilled eggplant and sautéed mushrooms, with a decorative smear of orange essence, has to be the pick of the main courses. Triscari starts with whole ducks; no doubt there’s duck bits and duck stock to be found elsewhere.

More complex, but still a satisfying plate even without side dishes, are seared Hervey Bay scallops in the shell, with a zucchini flower filled with scallop mousse, given a salty-sweet flavour hit with grilled, chopped speck that’s been marinated in maple syrup. As with the cotechino sausage, you wonder about it but it works.

Desserts all look quite decadent – none more so than the nine-layered slender stack of toffee banana Genoise served with caramelised white chocolate mousse and a splash of passionfruit curd. This is also one of the few places left in town where you can find a decent cheese plate – seven on offer, three each from France and Italy, one Australian cheddar from Pyengana.

Then, fourthly, the wine. Chloe’s was once famous for its wine list – up to 25,000 bottles including a stash of ’82 Petrus that now sells at auction for up to $8000, and all the most famous wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy. Papazahariakis reckons that this is, perhaps, what gave Chloe’s its reputation as an over-the-top, very expensive restaurant and has since deterred potential customers. In fact, he’s happy to welcome anyone who just wants a single course and a glass of wine.

The list has been trimmed to a modest 12,500 bottles, pretty well all Australian – but with some impressive vertical lists of our own top wines, Grange, Hill of Grace and so on, often selling for less than you’d find at Dan Murphy’s. Whites start from $42.50, reds from $47.50 and even the cheapest wine will find itself in the appropriate Riedel glass.

And finally not least of all, you get Nick Papazahariakis, born in Saloniki, son of a Greek army officer from a Cretan family; his mother, now 93, still lives in Greece and he says he talks to her every week.

Nick Papazahariakis. Photo: Tony Lewis

As a teenager, Papazahariakis went to Athens to study architecture. To support himself he worked in a bar, which, as with so many wannabe students, was his academic downfall. He decided he liked working with people in that sort of convivial environment, so a career in architecture was lost and another in hospitality was born.

Soon he was a dining room supervisor at a Club Méditerranée, feeding 1500 diners every day. This was where he met the Australian woman he would later marry – who would become the mother of Chloe, after whom the restaurant is named. Her parents, not surprisingly, wanted to meet Nick, so he came to Adelaide fully expecting they’d both return to Greece. It was not to be.

It led first to a job in the fine-dining restaurant of the then Hotel Australia in North Adelaide, followed by a stint managing the Weinkeller in the Barossa – which is where he learnt there was more to wine than retsina. Some grandiose dreams then took hold when, with his father-in-law and a group of Greek investors, $41 million was raised to open a casino back in Greece. That plan was scuttled when, in 1973, there were student riots in Greece, tanks roamed the streets and there was political chaos.

Papazahariakis flipped around for a while, at one point running the floor at Benjamin’s, where another hospitality icon, Peter Jarmer, was chef, before taking over a tiny French restaurant, Le Paris, in a row of shops facing the Buckingham Arms Hotel in Medindie. And this is where his star began to shine.

This was around 1977, when nouvelle cuisine was all the rage, popularised by French chefs such as Michel Guérard, Pierre Troisgros and Roger Vergé. Papazahariakis was the first to introduce it to Adelaide – tiny serves on big plates, eventually much derided as “one fart and it’s gone”. It was a phase which, fortunately, didn’t last even though it signified a lasting shift in French cuisine.

It coincided, also, with a major shift in Australian cooking, when local chefs such as Jarmer (Reilly’s, Jarmer’s), Alan Weiss (Magic Flute, now kitchen gardener at Chloe’s), Cheong Liew (Nediz, Grange) and Jean Mahe (l’Epicurean) would meet every Wednesday morning at Lucia’s in the Central Market to see who’d managed to score fresh basil or coriander, when sun-dried tomatoes and local olive oil were novelties. As Papazahariakis says, for them it was a very exciting period: “We had a real sense of creating an Australian cuisine.”

So that’s what you get at Chloe’s: unfashionable but beautiful surroundings, exemplary service, very good cooking (and decent portions), Riedel glasses for even the cheapest drop – and a wine list that few places in Adelaide can beat. An extraordinary pedigree. It’s fussy, more formal than many people want and you’d never describe it as cool. But it’s also what I call good value for money.

Chloe’s Restaurant
36 College Road, Kent Town, 8362 2574
Open for dinner Monday to Saturday and lunch by appointment.

Peach sorbet amuse bouche with crab apple, strawberry and guava. Photo: Tony Lewis

Porcini mushroom risotto with shaved wagyu bresaola, truffle dressing, blueberry and parmesan. Photo: Tony Lewis

Cured ocean trout with dill emulsion and tapioca cracker. Photo: Tony Lewis

Seared scallops and filled zucchini flowers with grilled maple speck and Champagne emulsion. Photo: Tony Lewis

Smoked duck breast with chargrilled eggplant, miso mushrooms and orange essence. Photo: Tony Lewis

Toffee banana Genoise with white chocolate mousse, passionfruit curd and spiced macadamia. Photo: Tony Lewis