Storied Brisbane club reborn as a sun-kissed beer garden and eatery
There are 16 beer taps, stacks of cocktails, and a food menu that’s much better than it perhaps has any right to be. Take a look inside.
Well, would you look at Birdees. Not that it’s called Birdees. Not any more.
Instead, the former rooftop club on the corner of Ann and Gipps streets has been rebranded The Beaumont and now bills itself as a beer garden. It finally reopens this week after a two-and-a-half year, $7 million refurb, and you imagine a lot of punters will come just to see what’s changed.
The answer is: plenty. For starters, the old Ann Street stairwell has been closed off for general entry; instead, you enter via Gipps Street next to the new lobby for Bunk Brisbane. Climb a couple of floors, and you’ll arrive at what used to be the far end of the club.
The old back wall is now a row of generously sized booths, the bar on the Gipps Street side of the venue has been expanded, and a set of stairs now takes you down towards Ann Street and the internal seating area, where the kitchen has been rebuilt.
It’s disorientating enough that you second-guess for a moment you’re actually inside the old Birdees.
“Birdees was such an iconic brand,” says group manager Danny Webster-Clamp. “But it was somewhere you wanted to go to party, and then the amount of money we were spending, we wanted to look after our backpackers next door, but also have this venue where everyone’s welcome.
“We wanted to create something a bit more elevated … and I think the result is like Birdees has grown up, in a way. That’s something we wanted to latch onto because a lot of those kids who used to come to Birdees are themselves now grown up.”
Looking after the fitout was Toowong design firm Jumble and Stack. It’s lended The Beaumont a paved outside area with timber and tiled high-top tables, striped Mediterranean umbrellas, and plenty of greenery. It’s much more salubrious than the Birdees days, with more broad appeal.
For drinks, 16 taps pour a mix of big box and rotating craft brews, a robust menu of signature and classic cocktails, and a super-tight 32-bottle wine list (14 are available by the glass), with most hovering in the $60 to $80 range.
It’s the food, though, that Webster-Clamp wants to talk about, and fair enough: this is a cut above your standard boozer fillers without drifting into overly mannered gastropub territory, and looks to capture a sense of place.
There’s chargrilled Mooloolaba prawns with herbs and garlic butter; burrata from Byron Bay Mozzarella with chargrilled mango and a witlof salad; and a lobster brioche roll with cos lettuce, chives and black salt.
Larger plates include farmed Humpty Doo barra with skin-on fries; quinoa rissoles with heirloom cherry tomatoes, a chargrilled pumpkin balsamic reduction and crispy chickpeas; and a 300-gram seven-score Carrara Wagyu from Kilcoy served with confit potato and a Granite Belt red wine jus.
There are also burgers, Neapolitan pizzas made with sourdough, and a bunch of larger share plates such as overnight braised lamb shoulder, a beef tomahawk, and whole-roasted cauliflower.
In the morning, The Beaumont runs a straightforward breakfast menu that includes a breakfast wrap, a breakfast burger, smashed avocado on sourdough, and a dark chocolate granola cup with mango and blood orange yoghurt.
“People’s thoughts on what food should be in a venue like this are changing,” Webster-Clamp says. “They want to eat local and know where their food is coming from. And we’re a destination venue, so we wanted to drive people here through that food and beverage.”
The Beaumont will be followed in the coming weeks by Monty, a more club-oriented venue on the first floor that can be used for functions.
The Beaumont, Monty and Bunk are part of a new hospitality group, Mobius, which has spun off from Katarzyna Group (Cloudland, Valley Hops Brewing, Empire et al) and is overseen by Bevan Bickle. It also includes Southbeach and South Bank Beer Garden in South Bank.
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Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.