The story behind Justin James’ Restaurant Aptos
CityMag sits down with Justin James to chat all things Restaurant Aptos – the highly anticipated new opening in the Adelaide Hills by the renowned and internationally recognised chef.
When we ask Justin James – the former Restaurant Botanic executive chef – to explain the vision for his upcoming Restaurant Aptos, he replies: “it’s hard to know where to start”.
For Justin, the concept of Restaurant Aptos is something he has been thinking about since “early on in life”.
“I’ve always wanted to be a chef – grade five or something like that. [I remember] writing down ‘I want to be a chef when I grow up’, quote, unquote,” Justin says.
“I really have dedicated my life to being a chef … my first job was in the kitchen, and I’ve always had jobs in the kitchen, went to school to be an engineer and still wanted to be a chef after that.
“Once I started to understand the world of tasting menu restaurants and fine dining, and what a Michelin star restaurant was, and a three-Michelin-star restaurant, I was instantly drawn to that.”
Restaurant Aptos will be a 14-seat restaurant in the 156-year-old Stirling Church—formerly the Aptos Cruz Galleries—and will open in October. The restaurant was initially supposed to open in early 2025, before being pushed back to October this year.
“I also love being a diner at restaurants. I plan my holidays around what restaurants I’m going to eat at and usually, they’re Michelin stars and I love that as a guest,” he says.
“I love being the creator of that too.
“I wasn’t getting any younger, right? And I’ve had all these years of experience being a commis [chef], a chef de partie, a sous chef, a head chef, executive chef, running restaurant groups, opening restaurants, moving to a new state – South Australia – and create a restaurant from the ground up as the founder, and get national success.
“That was probably the final tick on the belt for me to say ‘okay, you’re ready. If not now, when?’”
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Justin James. This picture: Gretl Watson-Blazewicz.
Justin says Restaurant Aptos is a culmination of his 23 years’ experience as a chef.
“This is what I want to create – a sensory experience,” Justin says. “I think we forget sometimes the restaurant is a piece of the puzzle.
“It’s one thing to be like the head chef of a restaurant, and you create something fantastic. It’s but it’s a whole other beast when it’s yours and you’re the owner and making this huge risk.
“But that’s the thing as well, is to get to the next level, you just have to own your own restaurant. You’re going to miss out on so many other opportunities.”
For the Restaurant Aptos menu, Justin says each menu item will need to adhere to his four foundational pillars.
The first pillar is using native Australian ingredients.
“And it has to have at least one [native Australian ingredient], I usually say two … it just can’t be like ‘oh, we’ll just put some dry saltbush powder on top, and that checks’,” he says.
“That’s not it. It has to be well thought out, like it’s the hero of the dish.”
Justin says pillar two is using seasonal ingredients specific to Adelaide, but Justin is “trying to zone into the Hills as well”.
“We are seasonal, because we want to use the best produce, right? As a chef, to me, I feel like this is a no-brainer, so I never really talk about it [because] you’re just going to use what’s in season. I don’t think that’s trendy and if anyone calls me a seasonal restaurant, I get offended sometimes because well, that’s a no-brainer,” Justin says.
“When spring comes, you start looking at peas and lots of greens and little lettuces. In summer, you’re filling in those gaps with tomatoes and eggplant, capsicum, and then autumn comes around, you fill them up with pumpkin and different root vegetables.”
The third pillar is that “it has to be delicious”.
“There is a wide array of what delicious is because everybody’s palates are different,” Justin says.
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“I’m cooking for my guests. I’m not cooking for me. I’m not cooking for other people in the industry but also, I have a duty – a lot of these ingredients you might not have had before.
“When it’s a new flavour, sometimes our brains are trying to analyse: ‘do I like that? Do I not?’
“But what I do know, at least for how our mind works [and] my palate, my brain, is when I’m like ‘oh, that’s delicious’. Or, ‘oh, that’s something that’s new, but that’s delicious. Why do I like that?’ Those are the moments I hang on to and say ‘okay, now let’s examine that a little bit more. Let’s refine that. Let’s tighten it up’.
“I want to create new stuff. I want to create new flavour profiles…I’m not going to put a tomato and basil together. I love tomato, I love basil. I love it together.
“Classic pairings that we all love, I just avoid those at all costs. I’m interested in creating new flavour combinations, which creates new flavours and new dishes and…that’s the creativity, that’s the innovation.”
The last pillar is how it’s presented.
“We eat with their eyes, and I think today’s world, you just have to stand out in that presentation,” he says.
“But they’re all tied together. If it’s not delicious and it looks cool or it’s like the craziest thing you’ve ever seen as a chef, I don’t see any point of doing it.
“So they all tend to work together, but they all pull each one a different way.”
Justin will be introducing two other venues within the converted space.
Bar Cruz – a place where “you could have a glass of wine and a small plate and leave, or you could have a few bottles and eat enough food that you need to be rolled out of the venue”, and a whiskey bar called Bar Mary.
“The church wasn’t what I was looking for, but I really didn’t know I was looking for other than a space that allowed me to create some different spaces,” he says.
“And when I came across the church in Stirling, it was a no brainer. The first time I walked through this space, I’ve literally created what is now the entire experience
“I haven’t walked away from it. I haven’t changed it. It was such a natural feeling and natural idea. It just came and I didn’t have to think about it.
He said while the venues share an address, they will have different brands, can be booked separately and will have different price points and offerings between Restaurant Aptos and Bar Cruz.
“Bar Mary – the whiskey bar – I guess that was probably the only one that was up in the air where I could have put the kitchen in there, but it was away from the guests, and I didn’t like that,” he said.
“Why not just create something that’s going to be fun?”
Restaurant Aptos is located at 147 Mount Barker Road, Stirling and is slated to open in October.
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Read more about Justin and his partner Eli Moulton on blending a young family, opening a new restaurant and preparing for a baby in the June issue of SALIFE, which is currently on sale now.