Shock closure: Top 100 Qld restaurant to shut its doors

A prominent Brisbane eatery named as one of Queensland’s best has announced its shock closure, with customers devastated by the news.

Restaurant manager Katija Brticevic, and head chef Aubrey Courtel at Nice Thai by Kid Curry, which will close to make way for new French bistro Mini. Picture: Adam Head

A prominent Brisbane eatery named in Queensland’s top 100 restaurants has announced its shock closure, with customers devastated by the news.

Nice Thai by Kid Curry in Fortitude Valley, which is a sister venue to the hugely popular Happy Boy and Snack Man restaurants next door, will shut in two weeks to make way for a new concept.

Despite the venue undergoing a refresh less than six months ago and it coming in at No. 45 in last year’s delicious. 100, which highlights Queensland’s best restaurants, owners and brothers Cameron and Jordan Votan said the time was right for the operation to close.

“It was a hard decision. It definitely was hitting its stride and it definitely had a level of custom that was sustainable … but for how good it was, it did suffer a little bit for being another Asian restaurant next to Happy Boy and Snack Man,” Cameron said.

Nice Thai by Kid Curry, Fortitude Valley. Picture: David Kelly

Nice Thai will be replaced by a rotating pop-up concept in the tenancy, with the first iteration to be a casual French-themed bistro called Mini opening in three weeks.

Mini will seat 40 inside and another 30 outside in a new garden extension, serving up everything from beef tartare and chinois prawn dumplings to steak frites and chicken cordon bleu.

“Some of my favourite food memories from Paris and beyond is those types of meals … and we love the idea of having a beautiful French section outside where people can have cheese plates and charcuterie boards and cocktails and amazing French wines and that’s why Mini fits so well,” Cameron said.

Mini will also act as a preview to the brother’s fourth restaurant along the East St strip due to launch in January next year, a French wine bar and eatery named Petite.

“Petite will be similar to Snack Man with a pretty amazing wine list and all the plates will be shared for the table all in smaller formats so you can try lots of things,” said Cameron, revealing it will be at a very accessible price point.

The restaurant team from Mini, fronted by head chef Aubrey Courtel and manager Katija Brticevic, will move to run Petite from January, with the Mini space then scheduled to close for a series of new pop-up concepts.

“This space should be our ability to be a bit exploratory – dig into really cool residencies and bring an opportunity for young chefs to trial concepts in there for a few weeks as a pop-up,” Cameron said.

“We’re also looking at) who are some of the great chefs who are overseas that we could potentially bring in just to expose some new ideas.”

Nice Thai by Kid Curry will officially close in two weeks.