New addition to hottest dining strip

It’s in the epicentre of social cool in Fortitude Valley but what’s the verdict on this good-looking newcomer?

Elegant design: Beaux Rumble in Ada Lane.

If the James St precinct in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley was any hotter in terms of social cool it would be radioactive. At its epicentre is the Calile Hotel, which opened late last year with award-winning Greek Hellenika as its in-house restaurant, where you might spot anyone from Bono to Shawn Mendes or Tara Moss while scoffing your saganaki.

Now the stylish white-brick hostelry has expanded its reach into adjacent Ada Lane, with a line-up of food businesses including Valley Asian-fusion favourite Longtime’s new incarnation Same Same, and Beaux Rumble, a wood-fire grill restaurant helmed by chef Alan Wise, who won a Michelin star while heading Rouge Tomate in New York.

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Speaking of what’s hot, wood-fire cooking is right up there, with chefs around the globe increasingly chucking their sous vide bags and turning off the gas to slave over flame. In Beaux Rumble’s main dining room – which guests eventually reach after first being seated in the bar at the front and fed an amuse bouche – chefs work in the open kitchen before an enormous grill and a large oven radiating heat from the coals glowing in its open maw, an earthy contrast to the elegant parquetry floor, curtains and vaulted ceiling of the dining room.

From apple wood-smoked oysters with dashi jelly, prune vinaigrette and fried ginger (two for $10), the lengthy menu winds its way through sardines, scampi, trout and sirloin to a grilled veal rack, with white asparagus and tarragon salsa verde ($95), with the words charred, roasted and smoked peppered among the descriptions.

Elegant design: Beaux Rumble in Ada Lane.

Polenta bread ($19) arrives in two small cubes clad with velvety sea urchin, pools of corn puree glistening alongside. It’s all over in a bite or two, almost too small to savour.

Moreton Bay squid with pickled fennel and squid ink vinaigrette ($24) is dramatically presented, resembling a matte black anatomical model of a spine.

Black magic: the Moreton Bay squid dish at Beaux Rumble.

Grilled scallops ($30) covered by a thicket of lightly roasted enoki mushrooms and moistened by smoked scallop emulsion is delicately charming if almost too subtle, and the same could be said for the soft, smoky lamb neck ($44) and Fremantle octopus ($34). The dishes are beautifully presented and the protein components are cooked with skill and care but the supporting acts: pea puree, fava beans, pine nuts and mint for the lamb and chickpea puree with the octopus, are too understated to deliver a knockout punch in the flavour stakes.

Careful cooking: Soft, smoky lamb neck at Beaux Rumble.

Our waitress is eager to please, but we have difficulty communicating and she tells us straight-up it’s her first day and she knows nothing about the food. The other staff, who we have some contact with, are more on the ball.

The drinks list is chatty, with the beer listed beneath “I’m driving” and “I’m not” and the off-the-beaten-track, by-the-glass wine selections representative of a global wine list that begins, price-wise, with a Leeuwin Estate Classic Dry White at $62 and climbs to a $742 Italian nebbiolo.

Finale: lemon sorbet with panna cotta, chantilly, black pepper tuile.

Desserts don’t reach the standard of the rest of the cooking; lengths of rhubarb packed tightly into a dome ($15) are too tart, although the dish might have worked if there was more of the custard which is dobbed around the plate with crumbled oatmeal biscuit. Lemon sorbet ($16) is bitter and the accompanying panna cotta rubbery, although Chantilly cream and a just-right black pepper tuile help pull it together.

It’s an uneven experience but it’s early days. As it stands I’d hoped for more rumble for my (not inconsiderable) buck.

BEAUX RUMBLE

Ada Lane, 46 James St,

Fortitude Valley

BOOK

[phone] or beauxrumble.com.au

OPEN

Dinner Tue-Sat 5.30-10pm; lunch
Fri-Sat 12-3pm; brunch Sun 10am-3pm

MUST TRY

Grilled scallops with roasted enoki mushrooms

VERDICT

Food 7

Ambience 8

Service 6

Value 6

OVERALL 7