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Bin 12. Bin 72. Bin 232. Bin 89. You might recognise the names and numbers from weekend trips to the Gold Coast.
This week Brisbane welcomed Bin 931, the city’s first restaurant from the Coast-based Ridgeway Group. “‘Bin’ is like a wine bin or a wine barrel, and the number on a wine barrel is the position it is in the winery – like a location number,” Ridgeway’s group operations manager Christian Mak explains. But instead of barrel numbers, each bistro takes the location’s street number.
On Thursday Bin 931 joined the high calibre of restaurants opening in Westfield Chermside’s new resort-style food precinct. The revitalised corner of the shopping centre is now an open-air restaurant hub with a weaving promenade, water feature and an illuminated dome.
Bin 931’s menu is an around-the-world share plate adventure by group executive chef Dustin Sanderson. The smaller dishes include baked eggplant miso with sesame and parmesan; prawn-stuffed zucchini flowers; and tequila-cured salmon with yuzu gel, pickled-ginger dressing and wasabi mayo. Large hearty servings of beef rib on the bone, a lemon and herb half chicken and spiced pork belly sit at the heavier end. Oysters and olives, salads, seafood dishes, pastas and sides round out the menu.
The 150-seat bistro has high ceilings from which wine bottles hang as light fittings. Barrels used as outdoor barricades drive home the vino reference.
Speaking of wine, it’s ordered by iPad. Mak says displaying it this way both speeds up ordering and empowers diners to try something they wouldn’t normally pick. Each available drop has tasting notes, and the cocktails have pictures. Mak reckons excellent service will be Bin 931’s point of difference at Chermside. “When we receive our guests we try and make them feel like family.”
Bin 931
Westfield Chermside, Corner Gympie and Hamilton Roads, Chermside
(07) 3350 4213
Hours:
Sun to Thu 11am–10pm
Fri & Sat 11am–11pm
