I might have fled the state before I was of legal voting age, following the well-beaten path trodden by so many South Australians out east. But on every trip back, a sneaking suspicion plants itself. It’s the essay-length wine lists at the most quotidian of pubs. The bustling neighbourhood restaurants with a menu reading like a farmer’s almanac. A blazing sunset over a quiet beach, or a small bar mushrooming out of yet another nook of the city. Might those who stayed actually be onto a good thing? Now it seems the secret is out, with The Wall Street Journal recently suggesting that Adelaide might actually, secretly, be Australia’s coolest city. The bold assertion was made by Emily Pennington, a regular contributor to the likes of Condé Nast Traveler and The New York Times, who declared the city a must-visit for gastronomes and nature lovers. Consulting high profile locals including supermodel Adut Akech Bior and Botanic chef Justin James, she called out highlights such as the cultural institutions lining wide North Terrace, popular eateries and bars like Osteria Oggi and Udaberri and luxe escapes such as Adelaide Hills’ Sequoia Lodge. Predictably, the claim attracted instant snorts of derision outside state lines, with one publication claiming Adelaide would be right at the bottom of the list for most Australians. So I’m putting down my Farmers Union and rolling up my sleeves to go in to bat. Here’s six more reasons the Journal missed that prove Adelaide is, in fact, heaps good.

Those that make it beyond the quaint streets of German village Hahndorf will discover there’s life in these hills. The valleys, townships and sloping hillsides are peppered with grand country hotels given second lives as gastropubs, craft breweries and distilleries, award-winning cheesemakers and local-leaning providores. The Adelaide Hills is the closest wine region to any capital city in the world (more on that later) and its microclimates have produced a growing guard of premium small producers ​​as well as a surprising proliferation of alternative winemakers flying the natty flag. Best of all, much of it is an affordable Uber ride from the suburbs.

The Wall Street Journal nodded to Adelaide’s wine culture – which is news to absolutely nobody – crediting it to the nearby vineyards of Barossa Valley. But the South Australian viticultural scene encompasses no less than 18 wine regions and a renowned oenology degree that has attracted vinophiles from around the world. This means you can go from enjoying the punk winemaking of Alpha Box & Dice and the hallowed surrounds of Wirra Wirra in McLaren Vale one day to visiting the Adelaide Hills’s father of pinot noir at Ashton Hills the next, before ending up at a wine bar in the city with a 15,000-strong bottle collection by day’s end.

Adelaide’s most-visited tourist attraction isn’t a big bridge or a cutting-edge museum. It’s a big food hall. Out-of-staters might be confused by locals’ misty-eyed reveries about the Central Market, but visit on a Friday night and it might start to make more sense. One of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, this undercover market is home to more than 70 stalls, selling everything from fine cheese to crocodile meat. On Friday evenings, late-night trading is the perfect excuse to build a roving degustation. Slide onto a stool for a bowl of SA mussels with a crunchy McLaren Vale fiano; visit institution Lucia’s for a charcuterie plate or red-sauce classics; or fight for a formica table to slurp one of the city’s best laksas.

(Just joking, I don’t get those either. Next.)

The relaxation of licensing laws in 2013 helped usher in the great small bar boom in central Adelaide, with 150 new venues opening their doors in city limits within the past decade. But the suburbs aren’t being left out in the cold, with savvy restaurant collectives concentrating on restored shophouses and formerly quiet strips in residential enclaves. The team that helped lay foodie foundations in Prospect with Anchovy Bandit and Bottega Bandito have most recently turned their attention to Hyde Park with Bandit Pizza and Wine. Between Bar Lune in Beulah Park, Orso in Rose Park and the new East End Cellars Norwood, the inner-eastern suburbs now have more to them than just private schools and backyard tennis courts. Out west, the beloved Parwana Afghan Kitchen continues to draw throngs of diners to Torrensville, and the sandstone surrounds of Port Adelaide offer mega breweries and cult local eats.

If you’re tempted to head south and gauge Adelaide’s coolness for yourself, time it for the last dog days of summer and early autumn, when the state is overtaken by festivals. Between the hedonism of the Adelaide Fringe, the cultured antics of the Adelaide Festival and the globe-trotting line-up of WOMADelaide, it’s a heady rush of pop-up dining villages, sideshows and good times. Actually, scrap that. Maybe this is one secret we’d rather keep all to ourselves.