Things are heating up in Adelaide as a spicy little festival takes hold of a popular city restaurant. Madame Hanoi’s Chilli Fest serves up a chilli-infused menu designed to make food lovers hot under the collar.

“There are 400 varieties of chilli in the world, and chilli makes up 16 per cent of the world’s food production,” says Madame Hanoi head chef, Raj Kumar. “I thought we’d come up with a concept utilising different chillies from different places and combine that with our French Vietnamese cuisine to give people something different.”

This year’s Chilli Fest forms part of American Express delicious. Month Out, a campaign that encourages diners to support local restaurants and bars with a range of exclusive offers and events.

Kumar’s love for the not-so-humble pepper dates back to when he was young, picking chillies from his family’s sugar cane farm in Fiji. “I was around 9 or 10 and I used to go out onto the farm with my dad,” he said. “It was my job to go pick up the chillies.”

When Kumar took up the head chef role at Madame Hanoi, he personally travelled to chilli farms to talk to farmers and hand-pick local varieties. He uses chillies in everything from housemade chilli jam, which is featured in a new crayfish and prawn matcha bao to chilli chocolate.

The restaurant bar is also shaking things up with cocktails including Madame’s Martini, which is made with coriander gin and chilli brine. “A lot of people love chillies, and they like to take chilli challenges, so we’ve come up with dishes that have nice flavours but at the same time offers that good hit of chilli,” Kumar says.

Diners will also have the opportunity to learn about different chilli varieties. Among those being showcased are the habanero (chef’s favourite – Amazon), ghost pepper (India), scorpion (US), jalapeño (Mexico), shishito (East Asia), aji lemon (Peru) and the hottest of them all, the Carolina reaper (US).

Those with serious chilli game can also play “Chilli Roulette”, involving a plate of 5 chillies, each with a different heat. “Whoever gets the hottest one won’t know because they all look the same,” Kumar says.

Madame Hanoi opened in the SkyCity Adelaide casino complex in 2015, with an aim to recreate the unique blend of French and Vietnamese flavours found in the streets of Hanoi.

David Christian of SkyCity Adelaide said timing couldn’t be better for the American Express delicious. Month Out. “SkyCity’s thrilled by this delicious initiative to entice people back out, particularly to the CBD which is just returning to a post-pandemic sense of normality,” he says. “We believe that SkyCity and more broadly, the entire Riverbank Precinct, is the heartbeat of entertainment in Adelaide, and anything that supports people returning to the incredible range of established and new venues in our state is fantastic.”

Chilli Fest 2022
Until May 14, 2022
SkyCity Adelaide, North Terrace
Chilli menu now available

Head to delicious.com.au/dmo for more details.