Adelaide

Matt "Footy" Horvath spent five years at Big Star Records before it closed in 2010 — then opened Clarity on Pulteney Street the same year to fill the gap. The stock runs deep across punk, jazz, hip-hop and metal, with a strong local shelf. In 2021, the shop doubled in size by absorbing the space next door.

Tucked into a laneway off Vardon Avenue in the city's East End, this is a bottle shop built for people who take wine seriously without taking themselves too seriously about it. Close to three decades on Rundle Street's fringe, it has assembled a list that ranges wide — Barossa and Adelaide Hills stalwarts sitting alongside Burgundy, the Rhône, Piedmont and Jura, with room made for grower Champagne and regenerative and low-intervention producers alongside more classical benchmarks. The range by grape and region is deep enough to reward a wander rather than a quick grab-and-go, and a strong spirits selection and non-alcoholic section round things out. What sets it apart from a straightforward retail floor is the ambition around the edges: a wine club for the curious, a small tasting room and restaurant upstairs, functions space, and an annual little book of recommendations that reads like a cellar diary rather than a catalogue. It's the kind of place where the staff behind the counter are as likely to talk you out of the safe choice as into it, and where accommodation and events sit comfortably alongside the core business of simply selling good bottles to take home. A city fixture with a merchant's eye, not a warehouse's volume.

A gift shop at 259 Rundle Street, Adelaide, open seven days while a flagship space at the Adelaide Central Market is readied to open at the end of the year. Stock runs across greeting cards, jewellery, homewares, candles, kitchen and dining pieces, kids' toys and books, plus pantry goods such as its Spaghetti Dust seasoning blend. Bespoke gift parcels and wrapping are offered.

A small, owner-run bookshop in the heritage Adelaide Arcade, kept by Kate Treloar and Nick Patrick, who grew it out of Adelaide's Pop-Up Bookshop. Treloar learned the trade from her father, the antiquarian bookseller Michael Treloar. The shop works an all-killer-no-filler line: a hand-picked stock of new, vintage and collectible titles that turns over fast, so the shelves change between visits. The serious end runs to rare books, and they exhibit at the Melbourne Rare Book Fair. Australian Traveller has named it among the country's ten cutest bookshops.

Colin Drewer opened Pencraft in 1968 in the Regent Arcade, repairing writing instruments by hand. It moved into shop 29 of the Adelaide Arcade in 1988 and has stayed a single-subject shop ever since — Montblanc, Pelikan, Pilot, Kaweco, bottled ink, replacement nibs, Florentine leather. The house ink collection was developed with Robert Oster in nine colours. Ownership has changed hands three times in 58 years without the shop changing its mind.