Worth the Trip: Bistro Livi Makes a Perfect Case for Solo Dining – or Simply a Visit to Murwillumbah

Truth be told, I wanted to cancel my booking at Bistro Livi. I was at the beach, just before summer hit, and my dining date ditched. The snaking, hour-long drive to Murwillumbah started to feel too hard solo. It took one step inside the restaurant to feel relief that I’d brushed the sand off my feet and started the engine – Livi is worth the trip. Worth any trip.

The teeny fish-forward dining room has sat in the art deco building on Murwillumbah’s Brisbane Street for just over three years. Helmed by twin sisters Danni and Nikky Wilson, along with Ewen Crawford, the place just feels special. Wraparound windows look to the wide streets outside, in a low-ceilinged room with a gentle energy and textured walls. Danni and Ewen are in the kitchen; she brings Melbourne energy from Carlton Wine Room, and he’s an alum of Movida, while Nikky captains the floor.

Moonfish arrives with green peaches, meaty air-dried tuna is bolstered by the purple-hued earthiness of mulberry and radicchio, bright pickled cauliflower florets have plenty of crunch. Well, those are the dishes that dazzled me – when you go things might be totally different. The menu changes daily, dictated by whatever the team tricks up that day from the Rainbow Region’s food bowl.

The most perfect, precise meal of my year first takes shape with a glass of Spanish skin-contact macabeo, a local oyster zinging with rice-vinegar mignonette, and a half-serve of those pickles. It feels twee, but I was actively romanticising it all: my water glass glinting diamonds in the fading light, Nikky’s effortless hospitality, people going about their Wednesday evenings in their small-ish regional town.

“It does come naturally to us,” Danni says. “It is the style of service we were taught and now also teach to our staff. It’s important to us that everyone feels welcome and cared for. Having a space and offering we stand behind definitely helps – we feel excited to share it.”

My half-serve of moonfish – cured in salt and sugar for nearly a week, then smoked and spiced – arrives, fresh with the underripe stone fruit. I’ve got a smaller portion (a perk of my solo diner status) of pickled horse mackerel, too, silver scales glinting next to a tidy pile of shredded puntarelle.

Bread ripped and dragged through the juices, I’m full and glowing from it all. The fish! The setting! The service! Nearing too-full, I regretfully turn down the chocolate cake that people are always talking about. It’s a slick, mousse-y number, powered by the Hunted & Gathered 70 per cent block

“You have to take the chocolate cake to go,” Nikky insists. So, home it came – plastic-wrapped on a bistro plate, hedged by its pairing of slightly sour mascarpone. Emboldened, I took a serve of the wobbly set cream, with its sidecar of local honey, for the road too.

And that thoughtful, generous hospitality is the magic of a place like Bistro Livi, and why the team with big-city roots fits into its slow-paced home, on the Tweed River, so well. It’s neighbourly, right? The half-serves for solo diners and the trust of returned bistro plates are enough to make a daytripper feel like a local.

Bistro Livi is an hour and a half drive from Brisbane, 50 minutes from the Gold Coast and 45 minutes from Byron Bay.

Bistro Livi
1A 1–3 Brisbane Street, Murwillumbah, NSW

Hours:
Wed to Fri 5.30pm–11.30pm
Sat midday–1.30pm

bistrolivi.com
@bistro_livi_