Eight to Try: Brisbane’s Best New Restaurants

The first four months of 2019 are almost gone and Brisbane’s surge of restaurant openings has barely slowed down. Finding it hard to keep up? Here’s a primer on the new venues that are worth your your time and money.

Perch’d
Having already conquered refined suburban Italian with Martha Street Kitchen, restaurateurs Jen Byrnes and Patrick Laws this year turned their attention to fish and chips with Perch’d. Opening in late January in a beautiful old Queenslander shop in Coorparoo, Perch’d is everything the takeaway place of your youth got right – fish and chips made with love – but with a heavy focus on the freshest fish and prepping everything else in-house. Chef Laws cooks a changeable menu of three types of fish (mahi mahi, snapper and blue-eye trevalla are typical), three burgers, and a bunch of sides including hand-cut chips, calamari and prawn cutlets. Out front, Byrnes matches the food to Green Beacon beer and Australian small-producer wines.

Arc Dining and Wine Bar
You may have thought Howard Smith Wharves had done its dash pre-Christmas with the rapid-fire openings of Felons, Greca and Mr Percival’s, but Arc Dining and Wine Bar is arguably the riverside’s most impressive venue yet. A 100-seat restaurant and 140-seat wine bar, the venue feels more like a bright and airy garden pavilion full of cane and wrought-iron furniture, the softer furnishings showing off designer Anna Spiro’s love for colour and luscious prints. Former Saint Peter head chef Alanna Sapwell has returned home from Sydney to write a local-produce-focused menu of dishes such as spanner crab with gala apple and cranberry hibiscus leaves. And Spanish mackerel with zucchini, chilli and native ginger. For drinks, award-winning sommelier Ian Trinkle has assembled an extensive list of more than 400 wines with a focus on sustainable, organic and minimal-intervention producers.

Maeve Wine
In mid-March the 90-year-old Ng House opposite QPAC was finally reborn as Maeve Wine, a Euro-inspired wine bar and restaurant. Maris Cook and Jesse Stevens (Hello Please, Ol' School) have teamed up with Movida alum Eleanor Cappa to open the venue, a 12-month gestation continually delayed by heritage concerns. The wait was worth it: Maeve is a beautiful upstairs spot with dark wooden panelling, marble counters and ribbed glass. Globe lights illuminate a relatively narrow space split into a bistro and bar, and guests enter the venue via an enormous copper door and a burgundy staircase. Food is share plates backed by a bunch of classy mains – think charcoal grilled hanger steak frites, and kingfish with roasted mushroom, golden raisin and caper relish – none of which are over $30. Cappa has put together an 80-bottle wine list that lines up Euro vino next to new-world drops in an old-world style. The best part? Maeve is open until midnight, every night, making it perfect for a post-show supper.

Mosconi
Opening in one of the old “igloo”-style warehouse often found in the Valley, New Farm and Newstead, Mosconi is a teeny 60-seat Italian restaurant from Vine Restaurant alum Daniel Rotolone. Mosconi takes a widescreen approach to its Mediterranean menu, Il Centro veteran Catherine Anders using plenty of local produce while leaning on broader European influences and techniques – there’s fried zucchini flowers filled with risotto, Brisbane Valley quail served with a beetroot gazpacho, and a 300-gram sirloin dished up with a taleggio croquette. Designer Meredith Burke has completely reimagined the warehouse into an immaculate modern diner replete with a mezzanine, pistachio-coloured walls with framed countryside scenes, and a curved marble-top bar – it’s one of the prettiest openings of the year so far.

One Fish Two Fish
Feed the family fresh seafood during the week or let your hair down and drink like a fish on the weekend. That’s the concept behind One Fish Two Fish, which in February opened in the beautiful old Queenslander corner store previously occupied by Banter Bar and Seafood. The tongue and groove wooden detailing remains, as does the timber bar at the front of the venue, but new owners Daniel and Amelia Miletic have installed new furniture and brightened the insides with a dash more white paint. The venue is designed to be flexible: you can pull up in the front bar for a “seacuterie” platter washed down with wine and Balter tap beer, or you can go large in the restaurant on whole salt-baked fish of the day and seafood risotto alongside casual eats such as “quarter flounder” burgers and Cajun fish tacos. One Fish Two Fish is hosting Red Fish Blue Fish dinners once a month, where chef Daniel collaborates with Australian and international guests to create special one-off menus.

Ramen Danbo
Ramen Danbo opened its first store in Chikushino on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu in 2000, before a local television poll saw the shop’s popularity blow up. It soon had locations across Kyushu, and then Japan – and then the world. In late March Ramen Danbo arrived in Brisbane; it’s just the third Australian Danbo shop after Southport and Surfers Paradise (which are two of the most celebrated ramen spots on the Gold Coast). The noodle soup that made Ramen Danbo so popular in Japan is a pork-bone tonkotsu broth enlivened with a house-made special sauce. The soup is run through a specially imported Japanese filter that helps maintain consistency across the chain’s many stores. The menu lets you fine-tune noodle firmness, richness and spice, and the shop has vegan and vegetarian alternatives. Beer is specially imported from brewers such as Asahi, Orion and Suntory Premium Malts, with plum wine also available. This is a new competitor for Brisbane’s best ramen.

Joy Restaurant
Take a chef’s table and lose the surrounding restaurant. That’s Joy: Sarah and Tim Scott’s new 10-seat omakase-inspired restaurant in Fortitude Valley. There’s a handsome compressed-stone counter, an eye-popping mural on the back wall, a whole lot of stainless steel – and that’s about it. The galley-style kitchen has acres of space for the Scotts to manoeuvre around each other, covering everything from the cooking to the plating to the pouring of wine and then the washing up. Joy’s first menu leans on the Scotts’ accumulated experience working at some of Australia’s best restaurants, including Urbane, Gerard’s Bistro, Sepia and Sixpenny. There’s seared scallops with corn milk, sour pumpkin and kaffir lime. And fermented celeriac with venison tartare, roasted sesame and garlic. For wines, award-winning sommelier Russ Berry has helped put together a list that leans towards low-intervention whites, the better to accompany the Scotts’ lighter style of cooking.

Nota

Nota appeared in March in the handsome former premises of Montrachet (which these days can be found in Bowen Hills). Chefs and co-owners Sebastiaan De Kort and Kevin Docherty have created something different to that French classic, preparing approachable, recognisable dishes that still have an elevated element. Share plates include quail from Brisbane Valley Quail served on sweetcorn polenta with charred corn, burnt hazelnuts and beef jus; a sandwich built with house-baked buns, tempura market fish and house-made tartare sauce; and a seasonal chopped salad that currently features peaches, plums and celery seed vinaigrette. The wine focuses on local and European small-batch producers, with an accompanying a list of bottled and canned beers selected by local beer expert (and regular Broadsheet contributor) Matt Kirkegaard. The classic approach to food is reflected in the redesign. Instead of Montrachet’s red leather, Nota has black, white, tan and green alongside exposed-brick walls.