Words: Lara Pacillo // Photos: TTSC
The core ingredients for a great dinner party according to Tea Time Supper Club are food, drink, and music.
“We’re incorporating drinking, dining, and dancing, and having a local focus,” Sachiel Paradžik explains. “Whether that’s through food, winemakers, DJs — just showcasing the great stuff that Adelaide has to offer.”
Sachiel is one of six members of the Tea Time Supper Club (TTSC) collective who host pop-up dinner parties across Adelaide. He’s joined by Jake Smallwood, Marley Scholz Vinall, Wil Davies, Flynn Jacka, and Seth Gates, all in their early 20s. They share the aim to make high-quality food more accessible and bring people together along the way.
With their last event in November 2022, TTSC are making a long-awaited return with a Sunday lunch on June 4 at west end wine bar, Nearly.
We sit in conversation with four of the six TTSC members, along with the Nearly owners at their bar, which, for the first time ever, will be offering full food service in the collaboration.
Jake sets the scene of what we can expect: walk-in à la carte dining; flower arrangements and candles; an outdoor makeshift kitchen; special guest winemakers sharing their new autumn releases; and Wil from TTSC with local talent Butter on the decks.
“It will be like a roadside grill and a bit of a party,” Tom Paxton from Nearly adds. The event will be the first of a monthly Sunday lunch service that Nearly is planning to make a regular event, collaborating with different chefs each occasion, continuing the communal unpretentious dining experience that both groups value.
As a concept born years ago between Wil and Marley in year 11 math class, TTSC has a key focus on bringing together food and music.
“We wanted to create a space that had elements of a music event but incorporated food into that and opened it up. Not everyone who was, and is, in our demographic can go out to a fancy restaurant every weekend, but I feel like we’ve found a way to put an experience out there that is more accessible.”
TTSC pop-ups have been a mix of set menu ticketed degustation-style suppers and à la carte made-to-order, where they keep it fresh with a unique experience each time. Their debut event in 2021 took place in the front yard of Marley’s sharehouse, where suppers at Littlehill, The Olivia Hotel, and Carton Deli have followed.
While Flynn and Seth are normally on cooking duties having worked in some of Adelaide’s top restaurants, Africola and Restaurant Botanic, Jake says they all help out in the different roles.
“When it gets down to it, realistically, pretty much every time the night before the event, all six of us are in a kitchen somewhere cutting up mushrooms or something.”
The collective source consciously across both food and wine. It’s not always easy, but aiming for local, seasonal, and sustainable produce is their focus.
Unintentionally, another ongoing theme in their pop-ups is a lack of a commercial kitchen.
“At the farm, we created a kitchen out of wok burners,” Wil laughs. “Two wok burners and a woodfire oven. That’s all we had. I think it contributes to the homely feeling of it all. The most we’ve ever had is the equivalent of a bit of a home kitchen. It’s been working out for us thus far.”
It adds to the challenge but has also forced the realisation of some limitations — for example, no more frozen desserts when there are no freezers.
When we ask what their favourite dish has been so far, they collectively agree on the salt-baked cod. “We encased six cod in about 30 kgs of salt or something when we were at the hill and cooked them on the wood fire,” Jake says. “It was among the best fish that I’ve had in my life. It was ambitious, and it worked out.”
The brisket French dip sandwich was a favourite too, as were the whitebait chips and skordalia (TTSC recently shared this recipe in Homebound’s PLATES series).
TTSC provide space for welcoming creativity, freedom, and experimentation in the kitchen, which isn’t often afforded to young chefs. Doing this has seen them come a long way since pasta and cheeseboards at their debut front yard soirée.
For the Nearly collaboration, they’ll be serving six shared plates, with a Spanish-style barbecue focus, including chicken from Nomad Farms, Murray Cod from NSW, bread from Brid, and dessert. As always, there’ll be options for different dietary requirements.
“Our aim for this was for people to come with two or three friends, sit down, and order the whole menu,” Marley says. “It’s going to be a reasonable amount of food, and attendees will get to try everything that we have to offer on the day, splitting heaps of tasty food.”
TTSC want people to be able to experience something new and be inspired to give events like this a try themselves.
“Everyone can do this stuff really,” Sachiel says. “It’s just a super pleasant way to connect with your friends and bring groups together, build up some strength in your little community just by doing dinner parties and sharing what you’ve got.”
While food, wine, and music are at the core of a great dinner party for TTSC, most importantly, it’s the people with whom it’s shared.
Tea Time Supper Club x Nearly: Sunday June 4 // Nearly, 179 Hindley Street, Adelaide 5000.
