Carrot dagwood dogs and camel pie: Upmarket venue’s quirky menu

The sense of adventure throughout the menu is what immediately stands out when you arrive at this Brisbane CBD eatery.

Carrot dagwood dogs and chardonnay? Camel galette with grenache? When you think of classic food and wine matches, such combinations are unlikely to be front of mind.

But at City Winery Eagle Street in Brisbane’s CBD, which opened in May, imagination runs wild. Some lesser-seen items of south-east Queensland produce feature on the menu and the inventive dishes are matched with a range of wines made at the original City Winery, which opened in 2019 in a converted warehouse in Fortitude Valley’s Wandoo St. There winemaker and co-owner David Cush sources grapes Australia-wide to to produce everything from nero d’avola to shiraz under the Gerler label named for Brisbane’s last inner-city vintner, Carl Gerler, who plied his trade in the 1860s.

City Winery Eagle Street Pier

The Eagle Street Pier venue has an indoor space where bottles of wine climb the wall in a display behind the central bar, with a large wooden table the centrepiece of an adjacent private room for groups and events. The venue spills out on to the cobbled thoroughfare on the ground level. Here stools cluster around wine casks, and potted trees and table settings intersperse with heaters. On a mid-week night there’s what appears to be a buzzing work group gathered inside, while the rest of us are outside taking in the river glimpses.

What immediately stands out is the sense of adventure throughout the menu. Patrons could enjoy drinks with snacks such as crumbed barramundi in a brioche muffin ($8), or beetroot scotch eggs with smoked macadamia and pickled jalapeno ($18) or perhaps house-made mortadella with green tomato and taleggio ($12), or play it entirely safe with a platter of Australian cheeses.

carrot dagwood dog from City winery

We’re in for dinner and given it’s August, Ekka nostalgia demands we try a dagwood dog ($6). From the outside, this smoothly battered ode to showtime looks like the real deal. But inside the golden coating is a carrot rather than the usual dubious sausage, with a pleasant caramelly baked flavour and on the plate a puddle of carrot ketchup waits for dipping. They’re a bit of fun and seem to be in high demand at surrounding tables.

At first glance the camel galette ($20) is disappointing, with no sign of the expected pastry case but rather a mound of pulled meat on a bed of pickled zucchini prettily crowned with crisp potato discs topped with a spoonful of cultured cream. The meat is from the Summer Land Camel Farm in the Scenic Rim and has a light hint of chilli and spice, with the texture and taste strangely reminiscent of the beef used at Mexican restaurants like Pepes in the days of yore. Texturally it works to pile some meat on a crisp and add a dash of cream, supplemented by a sip from the glass of the perfumed grenache from the Gerler label. Larger dishes include an assortment of mushrooms grown by Brisbane’s Little Acre mixed with strips of caramelised onion and piled over a bed of polenta perked up with some cheese ($28). It’s rather straightforward compared with the dish of the night, slow-cooked grass-fed short rib, the meat intensely flavoured and meltingly tender ($34).

Mushroom and polenta at City Winery Eagle Street

Desserts demand to be tried, how often to you see feijoa on a menu after all? The South American fruit known as pineapple guava is now grown locally and here is made into a parfait to team with chunks of meringue with added texture from puffed brown rice ($15). The banana and medjool date fondant ($15) arrives with a burnt bottom, it’s central cavity dry, but the top tastes ok and the Daintree chocolate sorbet on the side is smoothly appealing.

City Winery also operates a cellar door in Edward St, is the food and wine partner at The Valley’s Tivoli, and also runs Carl’s wine bar and bistro in Newstead. They’ve got a lot going on as a group but at Eagle Street at least, attentive, chatty service caps a relaxed evening at a venue determined to offer something different.

City Winery Eagle Street's private dining area.

CITY WINERY EAGLE STREET
Food 3.5 stars

Ambience 3.5

Service 4
Value 3.5
OVERALL 3.5/5 stars

Must try

Short ribs

Eagle Street Pier,
Eagle St, Brisbane

Open from 12pm-9pm Tue-Thur, 12-10pm
Fri-Sat

citywinery.com.au/