‘I waited three months for a booking at Agnes - here’s my verdict’

It seems to be the most difficult restaurant in Brisbane at which to get a booking, but is the wait worth it? Here’s our verdict.

Alison Walsh

@AlisonAWalsh

3 min read

November 26, 2020 - 4:00PM

Agnes Restaurant, Fortitude Valley. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

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Has it been worth the wait? After three months of impatient finger-drumming it’s finally the day of our booking at Fortitude Valley wood-fired newcomer Agnes.

It seems to be the most difficult restaurant in the city at which to get a table, with this the first evening booking we could secure, despite checking online and calling on its mid-August opening day. We did sneak into the no-bookings bar for a peek a few weeks ago but now the moment is upon us, at the nursing home dinner hour of 5.30pm.

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The interior is dark, with the one-time bacon smokehouse’s sandblasted brick and concrete walls lit by dangling lamps and a series of fires burning in pits along the back wall of the open kitchen. Long refectory-style tables are spread down the middle of the room, with comfortably upholstered banquettes and smaller tables around the periphery. It’s a cocooning space with social distancing between groups keeping numbers at 50.

Agnes Restaurant, Fortitude Valley. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

Everything here at this pyromaniac’s delight is prepared with fire and smoke and, despite the challenges, Ben Williamson (ex-Gerard’s) has built a lengthy menu working through an array of snacks – the oysters with macadamia ice and roasted koji oil ($6 each) are exceptionally fresh and plump – and other worthy options include the little flavour bombs that are scarlet prawn doughnuts and lamb ribs richly slathered in sesame whey caramel. Starters might include oyster mushrooms with leek custard or perhaps clams with pork and fennel sausage, potato and onion butter.

Octopus at Agnes.

We opt for a curling tentacle of octopus ($29), with a flame-burnished lemon crust that’s enhanced by a swipe through the adjacent mound of whipped almond topped with garlic shoots and a snowfall of green dust, pounded from dehydrated leftover vegetables.

Scarlet prawn doughnuts. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

Prices are up there for main courses, driven by a penchant for premium produce, with all meats aged in-house. The most expensive is the $229 110-day dry-aged, entirely grass-fed, full-blood wagyu sirloin with a marble score of seven-plus that’s for two to share. The cheapest is the dry-aged heritage pork ($44), which is a delicious arc of porcine appeal, the flesh moist and separated from a perfectly crisp crown of crackling by a layer of fat. A hillock of hazelnut cream topped with soured yeast is a just-right accompaniment, along with almost bitter spigarello (an Italian leafy green) that offers a fine foil to the fattiness.

Perfect pig: Heritage pork at Agnes. Picture: Alison Walsh

A very dark smoked lamb neck ($56) arrives ready to tear apart, with flatbreads (not hot disappointingly), saucers of ancho mole, yoghurt and pickled carrots. It’s a rustic, hearty combo and enough for two. A salad of radicchio is similarly homespun to look at but at the same time spot on, the torn leaves mixed with smoked pumpkin dressing, pepitas and whipped almond.

Through the evening the wait staff are engaging and informative and the sommelier keen to offer an opinion. The drinks list kicks off with smoky cocktails that lead to a superior by-the-glass wine list that covers a range of price points from a $12 glass of Adelina Clare Valley riesling to a $36 2015 Barolo kept under Coravin. The global main list is impressive, with local low-intervention choices mixed in with heavy hitters from Burgundy and Piedmont.

Strawberry mille feuille

Desserts maintain the rustic rage with a free-form strawberry mille feuille ($15) just lovely with its crisp pastry and ripe fruit and strawberry cream, while the smoked sticky date is a sweet-talking bad dude with a chunky cake base topped with vanilla ice-cream, then shrouded in a cloud of “dark matter” custard (pepped up by a spiced rum by that name), then studded with walnuts like an upturned hobnail boot ($16).

While produce plays a part in this success story, the appeal of Agnes lies in its mood created by a wood-smoked alchemy of ambience, staff, and confident creation in the kitchen. My advice? Join the queue.