Y
ou could measure Adam Liston’s
childhood by the number of visits
he made to his local chicken shop
in Goodwood, Adelaide. His family
would make weekly pilgrimages for
the grilled chicken and chips (which
they’d eat at home, with the mandatory salad or
steamed vegies, to maintain the idea they were
actually being healthy). Decades later, the Shobosho
chef still regularly visits the same takeaway joint –
and while the company has changed, the charcoal
chicken hasn’t. “I take my daughter religiously
every week,” he says, “and we have the same thing.”
Chips and gravy for her, yiros and chicken for him.
It’s an experience he wants to recreate – albeit
on a more ambitious scale – at JoyBird in Hyde Park,
his new 110-seat restaurant with Simon Kardachi
(his business partner in Shobosho). “We wanted to
stick with the concept of working with fire, which
Shobosho is known for,” Liston says. Unlike his
yakitori restaurant, which diners might save for special
occasions, JoyBird is intended to be accessible and
budget-friendly. Even if the charcoal chicken comes
off a custom rôtisserie grill that costs a cool $50,000.
Such a high-stakes commitment shouldn’t be a
surprise – JoyBird isn’t your typical chicken shop.
It’s inspired by trips from Kazakhstan to Indonesia,
and the birds (ethically sourced from Hazeldene’s
Chicken Farm) are brined overnight in three different
styles: there’s a traditional salt brine, a teriyaki
version using soy and seaweed, and a Balinese version
that uses yellow curry paste and coconut cream.
At JoyBird, the elaborate grill allows the chef
to butterfly the chickens and cook them over coal
and wood-smoke, three dozen at a time, while char
siu chicken spins on a nearby vertical spit. As that
rotates, he sprays the chicken in sake to hold the
flavour in. Shavings of char siu chicken end up in
Liston’s take on banh mi, while his version of a Chiko
Roll is encrusted in Japanese panko crumbs and
served, Vietnamese-style, in layers of fresh lettuce and
herbs. Eggplant is cooked whole over fire, flavoured
with tahini and plenty of lime zest, and served with
roti from Chinatown. And the chicken katsu melt,
inspired by Liston’s trips to Japan, is set to become
a JoyBird classic.
To get the menu right, has Liston enlisted his
daughter Nina for her thoughts, given her credentials
as a chicken-shop veteran?
“Yeah!” he says. “But she’s not even two, so she’s
not the best judge.”
With plans to expand JoyBird across Adelaide
and then Australia (“the vision would be to get
it into Asia,” he adds), there’ll be plenty of age-
appropriate diners who can give Liston their verdict.
The ultimate tribute, of course, would be JoyBird
excursions that – like Liston’s weekly chicken-
shop visits – last for generations to come.
JoyBird, 164 King William Road, Hyde Park,
Adelaide, SA.Below: JoyBird
manager
Linh-Chi
Nguyen (from
left), director
Simon Kardachi,
development
chef Yumi
Nagaya,
executive chef
Adam Liston,
drinks curator
Ollie Margan,
Chris Woodcock
and head chef
Dexter Kim.