Restaurant review: Stokehouse Q at South Bank

The sauce is slimy, making choking back the thinly sliced pieces something that takes stern will and determination. And this was the best dish we tasted.

YOU know when you’re really sick with a cold and cough up a mouthful of phlegm? That’s the texture of the Ora king salmon with blood orange dressing at Stokehouse Q in South Bank.

The raw dish ($22) is from the first menu by new executive chef Ollie Hansford, who has taken the reins at the well-known restaurant, which has the Brisbane River lapping at its bi-fold windows and uninterrupted views across to the city.

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While the flavour combo is spot on, with the New Zealand-produced fish given citrusy zing from the blood orange and a subtle hint of heat from the peppercorn, the fruit sauce is slimy, making choking back the thinly sliced pieces something that takes stern will and determination.

It is, however, our tastiest dish of the night.

The Ora king salmon with blood orange dressing.

Hansford has been with the Van Haandel Group, behind the Stokehouse restaurants in Brisbane and St Kilda, on and off for the past six years, and in the kitchen of the Melbourne venture for the past four years.

He’s regarded as a talented chef, but our other meals from the new menu are as dull as reading the fine print of an insurance policy.

While sublimely elegant, the starter of crab and summer pea tortellini ($31) arrives undercooked, the crab barely detectable and the seasoning significantly lacking – especially in the zucchini sauce. It’s not even helped by the accompanying glass of fiano recommended by the sommelier amid an embellished rant about sustainability in the wine industry.

The crab and summer pea tortellini was undercooked.

The lamb from Longreach ($42) is also as bland as a beige room. While the meat is cooked ’til rosy perfection, it, too, is under-seasoned and the promise of sheep’s yoghurt, which is seemingly supposed to be the sauce for the dish, is harder to find than your stingy, penny-pinching mate when it’s time for his round at the pub.

What does have flavour is a side of brussels sprouts ($11), however it’s one I’m not sure I want. While the veg is nicely cooked, the dressing of the spreadable salami nduja is so piquant it burns rather than adds spice.

The Longreach lamb was also a let down.

Desserts have traditionally been a strong suit at Stokehouse Q, but the caramelised apple dish ($19) is as disappointing as the rest of our meal, with a tiny, shrivelled apple sitting in a far too bitter caramel sauce.

Service is friendly and professional, but inattentive at times given the ratio of staff to diners and misses the finer details they previously nailed.

With its glorious position on the shores of South Bank and elegant room, Stokehouse Q is a restaurant that could rest on its location. I just hope that’s not what it’s doing.