Chianti Classico

When the owners of Chianti, since 1985 a cheerful trattoria on a busy corner in Light Square, decided it was time to move, they could have gone to any of Adelaide’s thriving restaurant precincts.

“We looked for a suitable location for two years, including the major suburban shopping precincts, but in the end we kept being drawn back to the area we knew best, the City centre of Adelaide,” says Chianti’s co-owner and award-winning maitre‘d Maria Favaro.

When a long-standing restaurant premises in Hutt Street came up for sale in 2001, they grabbed it and moved in as Chianti Classico – which hasgone on to become one of Adelaide’s mostpopular Italian restaurants.

It gave the Favaro family a chance to jump the menu up a notch or two, moving on from its homely style to more sophisticated and modern Italian dishes.

“We already had a strong City clientele base that we didn’t want to lose,” says co-owner Frank Favaro. “But perhaps even more important was that here we could have a fully-rounded restaurant trade – breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week – that we couldn’t have achieved in the suburbs.

“The fact that we are surrounded by residential, commercial, retail and professional premises gives us a strong customer base on which to draw,” he says. “But then, by being in such a central location we are accessible from all parts of the City – which is also an advantage for our staff.”

Frank’s wife Maria, who is very much the public face of the restaurant, says they had also been attracted by the elegance of the building. Its broad corner verandahs provide a wonderful outdoor dining area and are especially popular for breakfast – once voted by Restaurant & Catering Australia judges as the best breakfast in Australia.

“We knew the street, having always done our banking here because parking was so easy, but it’s now become a very busy business street,” Maria says. “There are two large private hospitals nearby, which bring a lot of visitors and professionals into the area, and recent residential growth has had a huge impact on our business.”

Fast Facts

● Relocated to new location within City
● High profile and rounded restaurant trade
● Large customer base to draw upon