Source : the age
There’s an undeniable sense of exhaustion in Brisbane food and beverage right now. After the pandemic and high interest rates and cyclones, the recent US-Iran War and its deleterious economic effects have plenty of local operators wondering (off record, if not on) what’s next.
And yet there has been a stack of new venues opening since January 1 – I was surprised by how many when looking at what we’ve already covered this year. And some are exceptional, even by this city’s recent high standards.
From the arrival of a star Melbourne New York-style pizza shop to a Japanese 12-seat omakase restaurant that will set you back $450 per head, here’s what you should consider saving your pennies for as we head into the second half of the year.
Fountainhead Winehouse, Newstead
Imagine the rumpus room of your dreams, but full of wine. This, essentially, is the vibe at Fountainhead Winehouse, which opened in January in a basement space on Doggett Street in Newstead.
These kinds of premises, in unusual places with that aspect of discovery, are like gold dust.
Head down the carpark ramp at 54 Doggett Street and there it is: a low-lit basement that Wilson and Banham – and a small cadre of collaborators – have treated with a light but engaging touch.
There’s art from Miguel Aquilizan and Jess Dorizac, textiles by George Park, and furniture by George Greathead. Leading the overall design was Julia Cox of jcHQ.
Fountainhead has about 800 cuvees in stock with about 600 currently on the shelves.
Pretty much every price point is covered, with Fountainhead peddling drops for as little as $25 and ranging right up to cellared $5000 bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the Burgundy producer that’s considered among the most expensive in the world.
+81 Sushi Kappo, West End
+81 Sushi Kappo is a dramatic 10-seat omakase restaurant that in January slotted neatly into the West End warehouse space between sister venues BY.ARTISANS and Aizome.
Originally intended to be unveiled early last year, Kamori decided to sit on +81’s opening while he waited for visa approval for his chosen chef, Michelin-trained Ikuo Kobayashi.
Kobayashi’s menu at +81 starts at a not-insignificant $450 per diner, but for that price, you receive at least 11 courses of eye-popping produce from both Australia and abroad.
The menu will evolve with the seasons, but dishes on the January night this masthead visited included an otsukuri plate of Queensland coral trout, Tasmanian southern bluefin tuna chutoro and New Zealand nanyo kinmedai; a yuzu and kudzu nimono broth of Canadian snow crab, Japanese tofu and summer asparagus; and nine-score Marble King eye fillet served with grilled onion, summer broccoli and a house ginger shoyu.
The nigiri courses come scattered throughout. Here, Kobayashi’s innovation with sushi rice, or shari, is on display, with two different expressions: a charcoal shari, and a vivid blue shari that’s been enriched with spirulina sourced from VAXA, a clean-energy, indoor farm located in Iceland.
For drinks, there’s a sake list 100 bottles deep, backed by Australian and international wines, and a collection of premium and rare Japanese whiskies. There are also three rotating beverage pairings to match the food.
Aunty, Fortitude Valley
Aunty is set inside the bunker-like former premises of City Winery on Wandoo Street in the Valley. Guests are welcomed into a small bar area before, in a theatrical move, a host slides open an imposing door to reveal the restaurant beyond.
Twelve venues in, this feels like a step change for Tassis Group (Fatcow, Yamas the Greek, Longwang et al) and regular design partners Clui, the restaurant sectioned off into a series of smaller areas through a clever use of booths, curved ceilings and curtains.
At the back is an open kitchen, its centrepiece a woodfire grill used for key dishes.
The bulk of the menu ranges across snacks, entrees, dim sum, wok dishes and items from the grill.
As usual for a Tassis spot, there’s seafood from the tank (signature chilli crab and grilled lobster with lemongrass garlic butter) and a pair of hefty steaks in the form of a 300-gram seven-score wagyu sirloin, and a 650-gram Black Angus T-bone, both of which are served with a trio of condiments.
For drinks, there’s a 250-bottle wine list that focuses mostly on Australian drops. Expect plenty of spirited, zesty varieties that can converse with the diverse flavours of the food.
Sunnyside Sliced
The Brisbane expansion of this Melbourne favourite has been in the pipeline for three years, after the Mentone original opened in 2021.
Mentone is designed for dining in as much as it is takeaway; Newstead, which opened at the end of January, is more of a straightforward counter operation inside Gasworks Plaza. But the offering across the two is much the same, focusing on New York-inspired round and pan pizza, served by the slice.
The pan pizza is prepared in custom-made rectangular pans sourced from the United States. Both proofed and baked for longer, the result is a thick, airy crust with a crisp, olive oil-fried base.
There’s also a trio of sub sandwiches and a pair of sides.
For his pizza, Cengiz is using Caputo semolina flour imported from Italy and ferments his dough for two days in a temperature controlled glass room that sits separate from the baking operation.
Out front is a triple-deck Moretti Forni pizza oven with a refractory brick baking surface for whole pizzas, and a triple-deck Moretti Forni conveyor oven for the slices.
Much of the personality of the shop is expressed through its cute branding, courtesy of Pete Johnson of CIP Creative.
La Bodega, Fortitude Valley
This East Brisbane Mexican favourite expanded over the river to Fortitude Valley in January, taking over the heritage-listed Spanish Mission-style frontage that began life in 1929 as the A.E. Griffiths Service Station.
Now painted a blushed terracotta, this is the best kind of hospitality space, with a brilliant courtyard out back that has a capacity to transport diners elsewhere.
On the menu is the same unctuous Mexican street food that has made the original so popular.
Think, fried chicken wings tossed in a chipotle sauce; char-grilled sweetcorn with queso, a house crema and smoked spice; and chef Alejandra Mendoza’s beef birria tacos in particular, which have become a minor sensation on Instagram.
For drinks there’s a tight mix of local and Mexican beer, wines with a funky, biodynamic angle, and a cocktail menu that leans heavily into twisted margaritas.
Bar Cooper’s, Coorparoo
If opening Snug in March 2024 was for chef partners Leham Claydon and Jianne Jeoung, neighbouring Jane’s Deli and Bar Cooper’s are for the Coorparoo locals who have embraced the young-gun chefs these past two-and-a-bit years.
Jane’s opened first, in December. It was followed in February by Cooper’s L-shaped dining room, arranged beside a low-set chef’s counter and a 35-year-old woodfired oven (left over from previous tenant California Native and hadn’t been used for a decade)
With consistency and comfort in mind, Claydon and Jeoung have kept Bar Cooper’s menu relatively straightforward. “Five or six” dishes are cooked in the woodfired oven, including a dry-aged Wagyu cheeseburger served with fries, while “many of the others are touched by the grill”.
Expect dishes to change regularly but other launch items included seasonal raw fish with agrodolce shallots, artichoke, lemon and olive oil; garlic buttered Cloudy Bay clams with kombu and fermented chilli; and cold-poached king prawns served with tomato caper mayo and curry leaf.
For drinks, there’s a 60-bottle wine list that leans more towards Europe than Snug’s Australian-focused selection, and a cocktail list with eight signatures.
Venner, West End
Venner is an ambitious indie undertaking from Milquetoast’s George Curtis and James Horsfall, and Blume’s Jack Stuart – an elevated diner that nods towards Nordic cuisine in a storied Queenslander-style timber shopfront.
Taking over the premises previously occupied by Gum Bistro, Curtis, Horsfall and Stuart have kept the banquette that runs much of the length of the venue but given it a handsome burgundy reupholster, and the VJ timber walls have been leant a blush of pink paint.
The flourishes come in the unexpected details: a back window into the kitchen, vibrant wall art courtesy of Amie Horsfall (James’ wife) and the wallpapered ceiling, courtesy of Becca Wang (Curtis’ partner).
Stuart’s menu looks to capture the seasons, both through fresh and preserved produce, so expect it to change frequently. At launch in March, dishes included kangaroo pastrami with cultured cream and fried onions, Murray cod grilled on the hibachi and served with a lobster shell bisque and charred greens, and dry-aged pork schnitzel with green coriander seed, caper leaf and jus gras.
The drinks list centres on aquavit, Curtis laying his hands on around 15 European imports, with a few more from Australian suppliers. For wine, Horsfall has written a 60-bottle menu that favours smaller European growers.
Kosta’s Takeaway, Newstead
Kosta’s is little more than a terracotta-tiled counter at Gasworks Plaza with some seating scattered out front. But that undersells how anticipated this Sydney import was back in March.
Each time owner Benji Terkalas has opened a new Kosta’s sandwich shop in his native Sydney, he’s enlisted the help of a chef to put a fresh spin on the menu he debuted in front of his father’s auto-repair business in Rockdale in 2021, and each shop has been a huge success.
He maintained that tradition at the Gasworks, bringing former Anyday and Gerard’s chef Adam Wolfers onboard. Wolfers is one of the best in the business, and his influence shines in two sandwiches in particular: a chicken shawarma, and a breakfast yiros built with bifteki, egg and cheese.
Otherwise, the breakfast and lunch menu covers sandwiches, toasties, focaccias, wraps and a pair of salads, with everything – other than the bread – made in-house, from the sauces and ferments to the brining of the chicken.
Bread is being produced to Kosta’s specs by The Bread Social. Coffee is by Canberra-based Ona, and a selection of soft drinks.
Yolk, CBD
Yolk’s original Newstead outlet has been so monumentally successful it’s hard to believe it’s taken this long for a second shop to appear.
Finally, though, owner Yianni Passaris opened Yolk in the CBD in mid-April. Passaris settled on a spot on the ground floor of the 307 Queen Street building. It’s little more than a roll-out counter, a yellow-tiled back wall and a small indoor dining section to one side
Out back, there’s a relatively expansive kitchen that’s “much larger than Newstead”, enabling this poky little shop to punch out the same menu of bacon and egg rolls, steak and egg rolls, chicken burgers, cheeseburgers and bowls of chicken rice. There’s still the generous range of sauces, including hollandaise, cayenne pepper hollandaise, chimichurri, and truffle mayo.
For drinks, it’s Five Senses coffee via an extensive espresso and filter operation lined across the counter that uses $68,000 worth of equipment. Otherwise, there’s freshly squeezed orange juice and a selection of sodas.
Never Enough, Fortitude Valley
Apothecaries Hall has done time as a number of venues since being refitted for food and beverage a decade ago – most prominently The Apo and, later, Uh Oh Spaghettio. Now, The Zoo’s Tyla Dombroski and Trad Nathan have reimagined it as Never Enough, a vinyl-driven, late-night wine bar.
Chef Trent Lymn’s menu will change regularly with the seasons. It has a strong European influence, but also elements of South American cooking he learnt when travelling with his wife, who is Argentinian.
For drinks, Mikey Pattison (formerly Alice and The Bowery, among many others) oversees a wine list that prioritises French and Australian drops but, given his background, there’s also a sharp list of signature cocktails.
Dombroski and Nathan have, perhaps unsurprisingly, also incorporated a strong musical element, with DJs playing vinyl on Friday and Saturday nights from an in-house selection of around 300 records.
If you visited Apothecaries Hall in its Apo and Spaghettio days, you’ll discover the bones of the venue are much the same, with exposed brick, heavy timber, metal balustrades and polished concrete.
Ruma Rooftop, New Farm
Occupying the open upper floor of the Little Lane precinct in New Farm, Ruma is just one in a series of openings that includes Idle, Johnny Gio’s and Luna Gelato. And like all those venues, it feels precisely pitched for the surrounding suburb.
Brisbane-based designer Alkot has lent the open-air space a beautiful if relatively restrained tropical vibe with terracotta tiling, imposing marble counters, rattan chairs, and a row of spacious, patterned semicircular booths, the whole thing framed by stacks of greenery.
Oliveira describes the food as modern Australian, pulling from a number of different cuisines but always using local produce.
Small share plates at launch included a wagyu beef tartare with yuzu kosho, chives and shoestring fries; grilled local prawns with a grapefruit vinaigrette and lemon foam; and a baby beetroot and compressed plum salad with macadamia cream and pickled beetroot ribbons.
Among the larger plates was charcoal chicken with yoghurt, a herb salad and lemon myrtle dressing; a nine-score Stone Axe full-blood wagyu with shoestring fries and a beef jus; a crumbed pork cutlet with cabbage salad and house condiments; and a mushroom pappardelle with mushroom sauce and pecorino.
For drinks, there are cocktails and venue manager Jordan Noble has compiled a relatively tight 50-ish bottle wine list that prioritises small Australian producers, with a handful of Italian, French and New Zealand drops thrown into the mix.
Sprout Artisan Bakery, Newstead
Sprout Artisan Bakery has always been about pastry chef Lutz Richter’s brilliant sourdough, and precisely folded and shaped seasonal fruit Danishes, berry croissant baskets, and double-chocolate croissant buns.
Since not long after it first appeared in the Food Connect kitchen in Salisbury in 2014, Richter and partner Rebecca Foley could probably set up shop in a bivouac and still sell out by lunchtime, so there was a little dissonance when the new, very modern Sprout Artisan Bakery opened in Newstead in April.
The venue is a low-key stunner, Collectivus’ Amanda Leeson delivering a venue of terrazzo benches, vertical grey tiling and striking brass-lined sconce lights.
It’s a step-up in food, too, with chef Richard Valentine flexing his brunch muscle (last used at Sourced Grocer six years ago before he joined Richter as a baker) to write a short, sharp menu that elegantly touches up the classics.
There’s a scrambled egg croissant with house-made dukkah, herbs and chilli jam; a miche tartine with soft-boiled egg and a choice of either smoked salmon, labneh, herbs and caperberry, or heirloom tomatoes, labneh, herbs and a sherry vinaigrette; and a beef burger with onion jam, fontina, black garlic aioli and provolone that’s served with fries.
That’s on top of a cabinet full of Sprout favourites replenished twice a day from the production bakery a suburb north in Albion.
Espresso and specialty coffee comes via New Zealand’s Coffee Supreme. There’s also iced tea, sparkling lemonade, orange juice and a pair of smoothies.
SayHi Thai Noodle Bar, CBD
Wiyada Korte unveiled SayHi Thai Noodle Bar in a laneway and car park just off Charlotte Street in the CBD in April. It’s a follow-up to her popular Ari street food restaurant on Adelaide Street.
Look for the Genki Mart sign, head towards the car park out back and you’ll find the kitchen in colourfully decorated semi-permanent container-like premises. It’s surrounded by trestle tables, and red and blue plastic furniture.
It’s constant movement out here, diners filing in and out, quickly deleting generously portioned bowls of noodles.
The menu leaves you in the driver’s seat. Start by picking your protein – chicken, pork, beef, tofu, vegetables or squid – and then match it to soup or style, such as tom yum, spicy and sour, or tum sen lek.
Finally, there’s the usual array of noodle options – vermicelli, rice, flat, egg and instant, plus zucchini for those wanting to keep it light.
The signature? A fragrant, dark and delicious Thai boat noodles.
Beverages are limited to dirty soda, Thai milk tea and a fridge full of soft drinks.
Biang Biang Fresh Noodle, Fortitude Valley
Kieran Zou has moved his popular noodle shop – which has done so much to introduce Brisbane locals to fresh hand-pulled Shaanxi-style biang biang noodles – down the hill in Fortitude Valley from Brunswick Street to Cathedral Place.
These premises are larger, and with their dark timber furniture and a dining room neatly sectioned off by timber shelving, Biang Biang Fresh Noodle suddenly feels much more like a restaurant in the traditional sense than the street-food vibes of both Brunswick Street, and the Toowong spot where it began life.
There are still the 10 noodle dishes on the menu. You can order dry Shaanxi-style biang biang noodles (pork mince, potato, eggs, tomato, carrots, shallots and salad), dry cumin lamb noodles (lamb, salad, onion, capsicum, cumin, chilli oil, sesame oil and soy sauce), spicy chilli pork soup noodles (pork mince, yellow bean paste, soy sauce and salad), or dry-style sizzling chilli oil noodles (garlic, salad, shallots, chilli flake, soy sauce and chilli).
The noodles are backed by roujiamo (the popular flaky ‘Chinese burger’), spring rolls, pork wontons and house-pickled vegetables. Drinks are soft drinks and BYO wine.
Goodside, South Brisbane
In June, Fanda (Marlowe, Southside, Central et al) replaced Kiki Kiosk with Goodside in the open-air premises beneath the Fish Lane rail overpass. On Hong Kong-born chef Benny Lam’s menu? The kind of East Asian and South-east Asian comfort food that has swept through Brisbane’s daytime food scene these past five years.
There are sandwiches, bowls and sweets. The star among the sangers is a prawn katsu sando with jalapeno salsa, radish and Kikkoman caramel, which uses a variation on Southside’s prawn har gow dumpling mix for its patty. Bread is made to Goodside’s specs by a specialty baker in Sunnybank.
Elsewhere, there’s an egg two-ways with ham sandwich – a variation on the classic spam and egg – and a three-cheese and ham pocket with egg and sun-dried tomato. There are also two bowls: A Hawaiian fried rice bowl with smoked ham and charred pineapple, and a Taiwanese pork belly rice bowl with sticky soy, Asian greens and tea egg. Sweets are a matcha tart and a baked coffee bun.
Drinks are a Goodside Iced Coffee, which mixes iced tea with a double espresso and finishes it with condensed milk foam; or a Fong Fuego Float, which finishes a watermelon mocktail with coconut cold foam. Orange juice, hot and cold coffee, and a cold brew and iced latte are all available.
The venue itself is much the same (although Fanda says to expect the furniture to soon evolve) and, never fear, it will still turn into a bar at night for causal drinkers and those waiting for a table at Southside next door.
Eclair by the Bay, Newstead
In late 2025, Michelin-trained pastry chef Pavel Stolarsky and partner Mary Martin shut their cult Byron Bay patisserie and moved up the highway to Newstead, opening in late March in the premises previously occupied by Jocelyn Hancock’s Cake & Bake.
This is an upgrade from the Byron digs.
Out front, it’s carefully curated and very much designed for grab-and-go, with a glass cabinet decked out in the brand’s striking royal blue.
It suits what’s inside: Stolarsky’s precisely presented eclairs in seven flavours – chocolate hazelnut, apple crumble, salted caramel, tiramisu, lemon and one rotating special – alongside protuberant profiteroles, textural craquelins, and immaculately styled raspberry, and caramel pecan tarts.
For drinks, it’s simple: black coffee, tea and fresh-pressed juices. Otherwise, there’s a shelf full of merch, imported candy, books and the like, and that’s about it.
But then, a lot of this feels like an advertisement for what you don’t see – the croquembouche, tiramisu, chantilly raspberry cakes and so on that Stolarsky and Martin produce to order for special occasions.
Hotel Terminus, South Brisbane
Ghanem Group relaunched South Brisbane’s four-storey Hotel Terminus – most recently known as The Fox – in mid-June, bringing back to life the long dormant Fish Lane icon.
There are three venues here (plus a bunch of function rooms): ground-floor pub and bistro Hotel Terminus, cocktail bar Vixen Room and rooftop bar Fox Rooftop.
The group’s preferred designers Space Cubed have delivered a ground-floor gastropub and public bar that captures the overall venue’s sense of history. There are the handsome frosted pendant lights, the terrazzo floors, the coffered ceilings with their ornate cornices.
Upstairs, the Vixen Room is a plush contrast, decked out in deep red carpet and velvet banquettes, the lights kept low to suit its late-night, cocktail-driven vibe. Upstairs again is Fox Rooftop, which is the open-air spot with killer views you remember but given a grown-up glow-up.
It makes for a great clutch of venues – different enough they could each exist on their own, but that nevertheless complement each other, meaning it’s easy to slip from one to the next.
For drinks, Hotel Terminus is built around its 16 beer taps with a mix of craft and big box brews; a clutch of easy, breezy signature cocktails; and a tight, crowd-pleasing wine list.
The rooftop has a similar number of wines by the bottle but with a more international focus. The beers keep it tighter and more craft-oriented, there’s a slightly more considered cocktail list, and there are also lengthy lists of tequila and mezcal, rum and whisky.
The Vixen Room, as you might expect, is well and truly about cocktails; the wine selection here is tightly curated.
Food across the venues is again being overseen by group executive chef Jake Nicolson, but this time in partnership with Lyndon Tyers, who is best known for his work at Donna Chang. It’s the kind of elevated grub made approachable that the group does so well.
Intermission, West End
Intermission opened in June in the Boundary Street spot out front of The West End Electric, this vividly delivered bar an interlocutor between the theatre of the stage and the theatre of the city.
Venue designer James Browne (a regular set designer for Strut & Fret, which owns The West End Electric) has made the most of the setup, with a vibrant treatment that catches the eye of passers-by. Inside it’s a mix of teal, maroon and a striking gold floor that Browne crafted from hundreds of thousands of hand-thrown gold flakes. On the wall are old theatre posters and painted portraits.
Drinks are spearheaded by a generous cocktail list that favours flamboyant signatures. The wine list is tight but similarly funky, with plenty of rarer varietals and boutique producers present and correct. Elsewhere, there are rotating craft beers on tap and a decent selection of non-alcoholic drinks.
Accompanying the drinks is a Mediterranean influenced snacks menu designed to keep you hanging about for a couple more rounds.
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
