Bright start for new Spring Hill cafe-cum-restaurant

The lights at this new inner-city restaurant may shine brighter than staring at the midday sun with a hangover, but is the food just as glowing? Our reviewer delivers the verdict.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck once famously said: “The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it.”

It’s this quote that comes to mind when dining at the newish Knowhere in Brisbane’s Spring Hill.

This cafe-cum-restaurant-cum-bar opened at the end of last year and is led by chef Marty Coard, who finished his apprenticeship just three years ago, training and working his way around some of Brisbane’s better known establishments such as George’s Paragon, Sirromet and most recently Baja Modern Mexican in Fortitude Valley.

With the hubris of youth, he has taken everything he has learned and is applying it with gusto to the menu at Knowhere.

In an oddly configured corner tenancy in Spring Hill, this all-day eatery is in desperate need of a dimmer switch.

While one corner of the space is dark and moody, barely lit by a purple neon running the length of the ceiling; the other is brighter than staring at the midday sun with a hangover, with track lighting mixed with a web of dramatic chandeliers loaded with no fewer than 10 bulbs each.

While it would be fine for the breakfast crowd, providing plenty of light to read the morning paper and admire the dramatic floral wallpaper along the perimeter; it’s hardly conducive to a romantic dinner.

Duck breast with lacto blueberry mole at Knowhere, Spring Hill.

It does provide more than ample illumination to read Coard’s menu though.

In keeping with the bar theme, there is charcuterie, cheese and plenty of tasty-sounding snacks that would seem impossible to resist after a few of the venue’s signature fruity cocktails or well-known wines all for under $15 a glass.

Think smoked pastrami and comte cheese jaffle, or the Knowhere sandwich, with house-made bacon, piquillo peppers, lettuce, avo and tomato.

There’s also a more traditional a la carte spread running from entrees of scallop ceviche to mains of Berkshire pork T-bone with pickled mustard seeds and mango to a dessert of raspberry sorbet accompanied by goat’s cheese crémeux and roasted white chocolate.

From the snack list, confit duck croquettes ($12) come as a trio, the crumbed and fried batons stuffed with strings of just slightly overcooked duck meat and diced potato, ready to be slid through a ridiculously good smoked tomato aioli.

From the same section of the menu come uber fatty cubes of chewy intercostal wagyu threaded on to skewers ($18) and rendered almost black with slivers of fermented
radish adding heat and acidity to contrast the chariness.

Slow-cooked and flame-finished lamb ribs ($17) sit alongside a puddle of smoky onion cream that acts as a dipping sauce, with just more of the accompanying tomatillos needed for palate relief against all that fat and fire power.

The main course of duck breast ($32) delivers standout crispy skin from dry ageing, but the meat is overcooked, leaving a curious lacto blueberry mole that tastes like sucking on liquefied Chinese sour plum to provide moisture.

Our friendly, knowledgeable, if slightly rushed waitress, tells us we may have ordered too much with the addition of a side of potato gratin fries ($10) – fancy French potato bake moulded into rectangular block-like “fries” served with a French onion cream and pecorino shavings. She’s right, but the spud creations are worth it for carb lovers.

Coard is clearly a chef with big ambitions and a creative imagination, and with just a few more years of experience in the kitchen, his ideas and execution are sure to align with exciting results.

Knowhere

Cnr Astor Tce and Upper Edward St, Spring Hill

3145 6784

kwbrisbane.com

Open Lunch and dinner Tue-Sat, breakfast daily

Must-eat dish

Confit duck croquettes

Verdict

Food 3

Service 3.5

Ambience 2.5

Value 4

Overall 3

For more reviews visit delicious.com.au/eatout