Bargain dining: Queensland’s best value restaurants

From $4 tacos to $24 gourmet pizza, check out our list of bargain bites at some of Queensland’s best-value restaurants as they battle to keep prices low for diners.

From $4 tacos and quesadillas to $24 gourmet, wood-fired pizzas, a feast of Queensland restaurants are defying the rising cost of everything from meat and fish to fruit and veg, serving up bargain bites to help household budgets.

Determined to offer their customers great value for money, amid surging prices brought on by floods, Covid and the war in Ukraine, some operators are reimagining the way they do business to ensure their prices stay low.

At trendy Chinese restaurant Happy Boy in Fortitude Valley, diners can fill up on everything from roast duck pancakes to mapo tofu and chilli chicken, with all costing less than $20 each.

“I was taught, if you do a good job and negotiate hard with your suppliers and be efficient in the kitchen and how you serve people, the best way to invest that money is to put it back into price and share your gains with customers,” Happy Boy co-owner Cameron Votan said.

Jeanette Quezada and Jacob Collins at La Luna Restaurant at Marina Mirage, which serves great value seafood. Picture: Nigel Hallett

Wanting patrons to afford to dine there multiple days a week, he said he cut costs by moving to more efficient cooking methods, offering a less hands-on service style and building good relationships with suppliers.

It is an approach he also uses at his two neighbouring venues Snack Man and Kid Curry, even stocking up-and-coming wine makers rather than high profile vineyards to secure better prices.

“I had a customer tell me the other day it was cheaper to eat at my place than it was for them to cook at home,” he said.

On the Gold Coast, La Luna Restaurant at Main Beach may serve up flashy Marina Mirage views, but the prices are kept affordable – on average $8-$10 less than Brisbane restaurants for similar seafood dishes.

“We make sure a lot of energy and momentum goes into pricing things according to what goes on the plate,” La Luna manager Steven De Maio said. “It’s about what needs to be on the plate, it’s not about having unnecessary garnishes that you pay for and then have to pass that charge onto the customer.”

With five sibling restaurants on the Gold Coast, including Koi at Broadbeach, La Luna is also able to use its buying power to secure good deals.

“We are not the type of restaurant that wants to do a cash grab because we want to keep our relationships with our customers,” Mr De Maio said.

Hugely popular South Brisbane eatery Julius Pizzeria, which attracts queues out the door every night it’s open, and its bustling sister venue Beccofino in Teneriffe, serve some of the best and cheapest wood-fired pizzas in any Queensland restaurant, starting at $23.50.

“We are lucky that we’re such a busy group with the two restaurants that we have the buying power so we try to get a better price because of the volume,” said co-owner Aleks Dzajko.

While he said it was becoming increasingly difficult to offer low prices with rising wage, food and wine costs, he said they were making savings in other ways, such as by slightly reducing their trading hours to save on staff overtime.

“It’s a matter of really working hard and shopping around and being smart,” Dzajko said.

For more great eateries, see part one of the delicious. 100, where we reveal 50 of Queensland’s best restaurants.