Restaurant review: Urbane, Brisbane city

With linen tablecloths, innovative food and a tempting drinks list, Urbane in Brisbane city takes fine dining to the next level

Lamb shoulder with couscous, Urbane restaurant. Picture: Richard Waugh

With Ryan Squires closing his doors and the departure of Alejandro Cancino from Urbane, Brisbane lost its two greatest culinary talents. Silly us. Esquire is, alas, gone, but sibling venues Urbane and The Euro seem to have merely sidestepped and ploughed ahead, with their kitchens now under the care of Andrew Gunn, a relatively young chef with a nicely credentialed resume.

He has big clogs to fill: those previously worn by Squires and Cancino, plus, of course, Kym Machin. Yikes. But everything else is business as usual.

Green apple sorbet with tonka bean. Picture: Richard Waugh

The Urbane/Euro thing has always had me in two minds, and I guess that’s the whole point of the siblings. I love the serenity, polish and culinary trickery of an Urbane experience, but there is something more fun and inviting about the relaxed bustle of The Euro.

This visit, however, is Urbane and its dimly lit, manicured dining room.

On offer are five and eight-course degustations ($120/$155pp incl vegan options). Dietary requirements, foibles, loves and hates are discussed on booking.

Once you enter the doors, things run on silk. If you like, you can have your wines matched. I choose my own.

Urbane restaurant, Brisbane. Picture: Richard Waugh.

An enormous amount of work has gone into the peripherals — padded tables with crisp, wrinkle-free linen; comfy furniture; good stemware and fabulous crockery; music just so; and a fat drinks list (not particularly cheap, but neither, I guess, is the rent) with an exceedingly broad collection of varieties, styles, countries and prices. A bottle of Sileni Estate pinot noir is $60, with $3900 for the DRC (Domaine de la Romanee-Conti) La Tache! The La Tache 2009 is a very good buy.

The five-course meal morphs into nine with the addition of petits fours, a cleanser and two stunningly presented “snack” plates, each with four bite-sized, mostly Asian-inspired creations: potato and truffle foam; scallop ceviche (excellent); crab roll wrapped in john dory sashimi; tomato consomme with smoked mozzarella and basil. Some, like the truffled potato, are merely decent, while the best are glorious.

Abalone, yuzu, kosho

Then the menu proper.

It is artful food: clever, occasionally surprising, and mostly so carefully arranged it seems a shame to spoil it with a fork.

The pick is a dish of scampi, trussed up in kataifi and sitting in a puddle of bisque. The richness of the bisque is foiled by ponzu and lime; everything is nicely tart. It’s complex texturally and flavour-wise.

And braised lamb shoulder comes as a cube, bound by filo pastry, on a bed of couscous, lapped by a jus with a whiff of Moroccan influence. It’s elegant and clever.

Towards the end is a dessert course. The tonka-bean “snow”, green apple sorbet and toasted chestnuts is hardly sweet and, for me, more intriguing than delicious, but again, it is texturally complex and a sharp, refreshing full stop to the meal.

Scampi, trussed up in kataifi and sitting in a puddle of bisque.

It’s a smooth rollercoaster of dishes with plenty of contrast and a steady increase of flavour and weight until the about-face of dessert. But the meal is only a part of the Urbane experience. It’s a polished restaurant in every respect, and dining there is cosseting and luxurious.

SCORES OUT OF 10

Food: 8.5

Drinks: 8.5

Vibe: 8.5

Service: 9

URBANE

181 Mary St, city, ph: 3229 2271

Chef: Andrew Gunn

Dinner, Thu-Sat

Vegetarian and gluten-free options

Eftpos and major credit cards

Paid parking