Winnifred’s opens in Brisbane with southern hemisphere’s largest champagne list

A grandmother’s warm hospitality has inspired Brisbane’s most ambitious French venue yet, featuring an unprecedented 14,000-bottle champagne collection.

Alison Walsh

@AlisonAWalsh

3 min read

August 28, 2025 - 5:00AM

QWeekend

The dining room at Winnifred’s.

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With 14,000 bottles of champagne and additional quantities of still wines you are unlikely to go thirsty at an extraordinary new venue in Fortitude Valley.

Winnifred’s, which opened on August 2, with a dramatic textured brick facade, is spread across multiple levels housing an 18-seat bar and cellar, a champagne garden, two event spaces, and a 60-seat bistro, Montagne de Reims.

The name is courtesy of founder Megan Nunn’s nanna, whose warm hospitality was echoed in the welcome Nunn received from the growers of the Champagne region when she began to visit northern France more than 10 years ago.

The galette at Winnifred’s.

Nunn’s passion for Champagne and its producers means she keeps the southern hemisphere’s largest list of close to 400 cuvees from 70 independent and small-scale growers as well as grand marque houses. Five are available by the glass, from $23 for a flute of Champagne Winnifred’s, while the bottles cover a wide range of styles and vintages and, consequently, prices.

A mini version of a croque monsieur.

On the still wine front, 50 of the 103 on the menu are from Champagne, called Coteaux Champenois (white, red and some rare rosé), while the rest of the collection showcases other French regions including Burgundy and Bordeaux, with several by-the-glass options beginning at $14.

Every detail is considered, from the bistro’s supremely comfortable, long, butter-soft leather banquette facing the open kitchen, to the sumptuous timber tables, to the ambient lighting, and beautiful tableware, while staff are dressed in smart black pants and white dinner shirts, or matching white tops and skirts with a nurse’s uniform-meets-industrial chemist vibe that somehow coalesces into sartorial elegance.

Parisienne gnocchi at Winnifred’s.

Executive chef Antoine Potier’s French bistro menu opens with hors d’oeuvres that include a mini take on the croque monsieur, tiny versions of the southern France tart pissaladiere (onion, olives, sardines), while small, hollow choux pastry balls, or gougeres ($10 for two), filled with a little bechamel sauce and creamy Langres cheese from the Champagne region, are delightful, as are the tiny buckwheat “tacos” filled with fish sausage ($12).

Possible entrees include scallops, quail or beef tartare, but disc-like Parisienne gnocchi ($26) appeals, as does “les bugs en gelee” ($32,) – a good amount of bug meat sitting on spaghetti-like soft curls of celeriac, topped with a thin Champagne-infused jelly cap and dobs of tartare-like remoulade.

The choux pastry balls known as gougeres.

It’s a lovely dish that manages to be fresh, light and flavour packed.

Market fish, or barley “risotto” with mushrooms, comte and black garlic, are possible main courses but the duck, the meat blushing pink beneath the rendered crispy skin, is a treat ($50), as is the “chef’s cut” beef, in this case eye fillet, a tender Ranger’s Valley Black Angus with a marble score of three plus, according to our attentive waiter, with onion, potato puree and béarnaise ($54).

A beef dish at Winnifred’s.

Sides could be French fries cooked to a comely crunchiness in duck fat ($18), greens, or leaves with truffle and brown butter.

Desserts include dark chocolate mousse with toasted bread ice-cream and malted bananas or perhaps meringue with coconut cream and yuzu, but we share the Le Paris Brissie, a hometown twist on the traditional Paris-Brest, a large choux pastry, with diplomat cream and almonds, given a subtropical infusion with the addition of passionfruit.

This is solid bistro food with a flourish that seems the right fit for the venue, backed by superior service and very comfortable surrounds that exude a quiet luxury.