Capsicum, corn and pesto surprise on restaurant’s dessert menu

Vegetables are on the menu all the way through the meal – including dessert – at a stylish new restaurant that’s just pulled in to a new space in Brisbane’s CBD.

Capsicum and white chocolate dessert at Motorwagen.

Corn and capsicum for afters? Even with the world going mad for plant-based eating it’s not a regular event to find vegetables in your dessert.

But at Motorwagen in Adelaide St in the Brisbane CBD, everything is a little unusual. The establishment, which takes its name from German Karl Benz’s 1885 world-first patented petrol-powered vehicle, drove on to the Brisbane restaurant scene in October last year alongside a new, Australian-first boutique Mercedes-Benz showroom. And it’s a rare beast, a cafe-cum-fine-diner with multiple menus following an ambitious arc from Vegemite on toast for breakfast to five- and seven-course degustations for lunch and dinner.

The light and bright interior at Motorwagen in Brisbane’s CBD.

New chef, Italian Dario Manco, who was most recently senior sous chef at Sardinian outpost Pilu on Sydney’s northern beaches, has shaken the mix up further this year, with his output appealingly flying in the face of a citywide trend to simpler, less formal food. His three desserts for example, are as different from the standard sweets offerings around town as a Merc is from a Yaris. One has a cube of whipped dark chocolate brownie as its centrepiece, set amid a pool of pureed milk-poached sweet corn, with a couple of caramelised cobs of confit baby corn strewn about and a dollop of fior di latte (Italian cheese) ice cream on top ($20). It’s great, a tastebud tease, like a popcorn-choc mash-up. Alternatively, diners can tuck into capsicum braised in honey and lemon thyme with white chocolate ice-cream and a transparent sugar tuille ($18), which is also surprisingly appealing. Or there’s watermelon, compressed, in mousse and gel form, with cookie crumble and pesto granita.

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All this culinary trickery seems slightly out of kilter in a place looks like an up-market Nordic cafe, all bare wood tables and chairs and floors, accessorised by judiciously placed plants, behind an attractive street-front terrace.

The sweetcorn, brownie and fior di latte ice-cream dessert.

But from the get-go it’s obvious this is a serious enterprise, service is professional and attentive and the drinks list kicks off with four Queensland craft beers on tap and moves on through a smart cocktail list with salted-caramel pina coladas ($18) and an ink gin-based negroni ($16), to a thoughtful array of mainly smaller producer Australian wines.

Much store is put in presentation and the spanner crab salad ($28) arrives hidden beneath a curved “lid” of crustacean shell. It’s lifted by the waiter to reveal a hillock of sweet crabmeat surrounded by a whorl of polenta enlivened by smoked scamorza cheese, which is studded, Neptune’s gardenlike, with tiny trees of land seaweed, succulent and petals. A bisque sauce laps at the perimeter.

The culurgiones, or Sardinian “ravioli” at Motorwagen.

Also dramatic are the black and cream coloured culurgiones ($26), crescents of Sardinian “ravioli” filled with a potato and pecorino, in a silky cacio (an Italian sheep’s milk cheese) and pepper sauce beefed up with drops of nduja oil.

Main courses are less flamboyant, with black Angus flank ($42) cooked sous vide, the soft and textureless finish a matter of taste, although it’s finished over coals to ramp up the flavour, and the soft leeks, saffron cream, Dijon mustard jus and nasturtium leaves do their best to lift the dish.

The barramundi with mussels/

Pan-fried barramundi ($39) is nicely matched with chickpeas both pureed and deep-fried and mussels paddling in a mussel broth.

This is a well-run enterprise with a lot on the go (there’s also a worker’s lunch special, an afternoon terrace snack menu, canapes, function menus). Prices are up there for such a casual looking establishment but it’s chancing it’s arm with something different and delivering.

MOTORWAGEN

300 Adelaide St

Brisbane

BOOK

[phone]

motorwagen.com.au

OPEN

Breakfast Mon-Sat 7am-11am; Lunch Mon-Fri 12-3pm, dinner Thur-Sat from 6pm

MUST TRY

Spanner crab salad

VERDICT

Food 8

Service 8

Ambience 7

Value 7

OVERALL: 7.5