From city subcultures to council drama, we covered it all for your reading pleasure.
December 22, 2022
Culture
CityMag’s most-read stories of 2022
10. ‘I hope you win again’: Senior ‘Tiser reporter backs Verschoor
Although no letters hit my inbox regarding this story, there was some online and irl chatter that made its way to my eyes and ears regarding whether a senior reporter who covers council at our state’s largest media organisation giving a public wish of victory in upcoming council elections to the incumbent Lord Mayor while on the floor of the council chamber constitutes news.
Yes. It does. Obviously.
If a reporter, who is one of only two reporters regularly covering local government, publicly displays a preference towards a candidate while inside Town Hall in the lead up to an election, that should be scrutinised.
Readers can then use this information to weigh up the newspaper’s other reporting – say, on a trip to the beach, or down memory lane – and if their interests are being properly served. Because the point of journalism is the public interest.
So yes, it’s a story. Happy to have published it and happy a lot of you read it.
9. CnB is on its way to becoming a major global fried chicken franchise
Ok, so CnB may be a few steps away from global domination, but the South Australian upstart fried chicken business has grand plans, and we wanted to properly capture that ambition, hence the hyperbolic headline.
The chicken is good, though, and a prior year’s most-read list showed CityMag readers are big fans of Korean fried chicken specifically.
We thought you had to know, so we told you.
8. The bleeding hearts of Emo Park
The mythos of Emo Park has swirled around our city for generations, but no one has so diligently captured its people as our own Angela Skujins.
In her reporting, we meet the current generation of people who gather in the northern half of Mukata Hindmarsh Square, hear what the park and its community means to them, and discover what the city means to this emerging generation. We also hear from grown-up emo and now researcher Paula Rowe on the importance of allowing spaces like Emo Park to exist, where young people can gather and practice their adult personalities and relationships.
It’s an affecting read, and, conveniently, comes in podcast form, too.
7. Cielo Tea Room opens in Adelaide Arcade
There are very few cafés in Adelaide that give preference to teas on their menu, which could explain some of the interest in this story.
It could be that the significant amount of traffic that travels down Adelaide Arcade pulled out their phone and Googled ‘Cielo’ to find out more about the cute new shop that just opened up.
Or, it could simply be that it’s a nice story about a hardworking pastry chef striking out on her own while drawing on her Chilean heritage.
Whatever the case, it’s worth stopping in.
6. ‘There is no civility’: Prominent city councillor resigns
Oh my, what a year of drama at the Adelaide City Council.
So much so, councillor Greg Mackie decided to resign rather than put up with the “relentless domination of the Team Adelaide faction”.
Voters in this year’s city council election seemed to feel similarly.
5. Silver Sands Beach Club is the seaside local you’ve been waiting for
The food is good, the views are excellent, and it’s all catered to you from the hands of Mark Kamleh and Nick Stock – a duo anyone would trust with providing a good time.
If there is to be a Dish of the Summer this year, let it be a cute little prawn cocktail in a Dickbun.
4. Our Boy Roy will be more than just a sando deli
Our Boy Roy has opened since we published this story, and we will visit in the New Year for a story. (You should, too.)
However, I visited in my leisure time earlier this week to sample their meatball sub (a developing personal obsession), and was absolutely overwhelmed. It was exceedingly tasty, but enormous. Ask for cutlery and some extra napkins, and bring a friend if you’re only very hungry and not really, really hungry.
As per the headline, I’m sure the menu items that don’t come served in sliced bread are excellent too.
3. Later Gator has found a permanent home in Adelaide’s east
Again, Later Gator’s new bricks-and-mortar spot, Gator Club, has opened since we published this story, but fans of Chloe Mattner’s goods can now drop in for a cuppa and a bickie, all without ingesting one iota of animal-based material.
Stories on Chloe’s Later Gator have always hit well with you, our beloved readership, I presume because quality plant-based food is a genuinely interesting and developing field in contemporary food culture.
Here’s to even more vegan spots opening across the city in 2023.
2. ‘Insulting’: Adelaide Town Hall portrait divides council
And so we return to the dramatic eye of the shouty hurricane that was the previous council.
Many shots were fired over the tenure of that collection of councillors, some drastically cheap – anything to score points over a political rival.
This characterises the exchange between a Team Adelaide-aligned councillor Arman Abrahimzadeh and Greens-aligned newbie Keiran Snape, as part of a 36-minuted debate regarded the moving of a portrait of Jane Lomax-Smith, who was Lord Mayor two decades ago, from Town Hall to the council chamber.
Reading it back, it’s difficult not to blush deeply with second-hand embarrassment.
And who won the debate in the end? Ask current Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith.
1. Meet South Australia’s 40 Under 40 of 2022
You know ’em, you love ’em, you probably went to high school with some of them.
This is our annual list of who’s who (and under 40) in the world of South Australian business and entrepreneurship.
We have beautiful shots of the winners once again from the brilliant Morgan Sette, so it’s well worth a scroll.
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