Brisbane fine dining: GOMA Restaurant, South Brisbane review

It’s been more than two years since acclaimed, Brisbane-based chef Josh Lopez left GOMA Restaurant after a five year tenure. So has the restaurant – the food particularly – progressed or regressed since?

In a city facing the extinction of that rather prickly creature known as fine dining, it’s nice to take a seat at GOMA Restaurant and get properly coddled.

Not, as you might be thinking, in a 1980-something, musty, fusty, rigid kind of way.

But it has linen on the table, gorgeous crockery and service that’s slick and glossy … almost formal, but not quite.

GOMA Restaurant, Brisbane. Photo: Josef Ruckli, QAGOMA

It’s the informal end of fine; the formal end of casual. And it makes for a very pleasant ride.

The big question for me is how the restaurant – the food particularly – has progressed or regressed since the Josh Lopez days (ages ago I know, but last time I was at GOMA, so was he).

I don’t reckon it has missed a beat since the arrival of Douglas Innes-Will.

It might be less tricksy, perhaps gazing more to Asia for much of its inspiration rather than the Australian outback.

But it’s just as thoughtfully composed, and as thought-provoking.

At $34 a pop I’m expecting some pretty stellar entrees and boy … I’m not disappointed. Scallops, tom-yum, yuzu and a sprinkling of sticky-sweet, glazed peanuts (a kind of Asian cross-pollination).

It looks divine and tastes even better in a sweet/sour/spice/salt in a perfect harmony kind of way.

Mirin washed Hervey Bay scallop, tom yum, yuzu, crystallised peanut. Photo: Josef Ruckli, QAGOMA.

It’s not just a concise array of flavours, it also explores visual and textural boundaries. It’s good enough to grace any table globally.

Nearly, but not quite as good, is Borrowdale pork belly.

It has been glazed with a rich, deeply flavoured, appropriately sweet barbecue sauce, then tofu somewhere, and ribbons of turnip providing a bitter (what a hard, hard vegetable to love) foil to the sweetness of the meat. And, I guess, crunch.

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Duck head, fish lips and pork intestines, anyone?

There are dates (unlike turnip … vastly under-utilised and underrated) scattered in the mix.

And right at this moment – at the ebb between entree and main – I step outside common sense and any behavioural pattern I’ve formed over half a century.

I order a vegetarian main ($39) – eggplant, kombu dashi, shiitake mushrooms and Koshihikari rice.

9Dorf farms chicken, black garlic, black rice, pickled blackberry. Photo: Josef Ruckli, QAGOMA

There are shards of what I reckon is tofu skin (could be skimmings from the rice pot) like you’d find on top of the milk jug once you’ve gone too far and boiled it – looking like miniature, crinkled bedsheets.

The eggplant is perfect (firm but soft, like a ripe banana).

And dashi? I’m not sure where it lives – there’s no liquid, but there’s certainly that saline, umami thing happening.

Hunted + Gathered 70% chocolate, caramelised banana, pistachio, cocoa nib. Photo: Josef Ruckli, QAGOMA

The Koshihikari (what a great rice!) is clumped and fried into small bites.

And the wisdom of ordering an eggplant main is repaid tenfold. It’s way, way better than an adequate but hardly special plate of beef short ribs ($48). In fact, it’s every bit as good as the scallops.

I like the wine list for its Queensland content (come on everyone else – surely every non-ethnic list in Brisbane should devote at least 20 per cent of its space to local wines?).

And it has very well curated content from further afield. But it’s the least part of a sizzlingly good package.

GOMA is food first, followed closely by detail, then service.

SCORES OUT OF 10

Food: 9

Drinks: 7.5

Vibe: 8.5

Service: 8.5

GOMA Restaurant, Stanley Place, South Brisbane. Ph: 3842 9916