Ambition. That’s the word that perhaps defined Brisbane’s dining scene in 2023.

The more recent post-pandemic years were for a time more about smaller venues, as landlords looked to flip empty spaces for lower rent, or chefs cast adrift from the big restaurants around Brisbane (or the country) started their own thing in and around the city.

This year, after a subdued start, things got less post-pandemic and much more pre-Olympics. There were still independent openings, but they tended to be from seasoned, high-profile operators with a bit of heft, and there was a real flex from larger companies and restaurant groups such as Tassis Group, Artesian Hospitality and Stanbroke.

By November, there was a sense of momentum around the restaurant scene that we hadn’t seen since the statewide lock-ins of 2020 and 2021.

Here’s what caught the eye these past 12 months.

Bosco, Newstead

From Bar Alto owner Simon Hill comes Bosco Wine and Grill, a handsome 80-seater in a warehouse space on Austin Street in Newstead.

A proper looker in an uncomplicated, almost old-fashioned way, the venue’s high ceilings have been complemented by striking black brick walls and bar fronts, and Tasmanian blackwood benches and tables. The tables have been laid out in rows, giving the restaurant the feel of a fancy food hall.

Chef Sajith Vengateri is using an eye-catching hearth to fire a bunch of proteins, including king prawns served with prawn-head butter, a half Sommerlad chicken finished with a vadouvan jus gras, a pork tomahawk served with celeriac and quince, one-kilo mud crabs, and a typically enormous Wagyu rib el txuleton.

Elsewhere on the menu, there are mussels with cider cream and French sourdough, and a bay bug claypot with rice, txistorra (a thin Spanish pork sausage) and rouille.

The wine list runs to close to 500 bottles and, as usual with Hill, covers every price point, from super approachable $60 vino to a $6200 bottle of 2013 vintage Du Comte Liger Belair Nuits Saint Georges “Clos des Grand Vignes” burgundy.

boscowinegrill.com

Pilloni, West End

The first thing that sticks out at you about Pilloni is its design.

This 70-seater on Hardgrave Road in West End has four separate spaces: a bar area closest to the road (which has an additional 30 seats); an internal dining space called the Camino that sits in front of the open kitchen with its enormous hearth; the Terrazzo, a beautiful enclosed terrace; and the Cantina, a private dining space. It’s perhaps the fit-out of the year, defined by timber, tiled floors, exposed brick, rattan furniture and pale blue walls crammed full of watercolour paintings.

Pilloni’s menu sets itself apart from the Italian pack by cooking Sardinian cuisine. Think suckling pig, hearty traditional pastas such as culurgiones, and plenty of seafood to reference the turquoise coasts of Italy’s second-largest island.

The food is accompanied by a 220-bottle wine list that favours Italian, European and Australian drops.

pilloni.com.au

Bar Francine, West End

A slight cheat because this actually opened in the dying days of 2022, but El Planta owners Adrienne Jory and Rick Gibson’s slick bistro took until January to get into its impressive groove.

Chef Brad Cooper’s pescatarian-focused menu is full of bold flavours. You might eat French toast with marsala onions and mushroom parfait; grilled razor clams with garlic butter; celeriac carpaccio with pommes allumettes and smoked eel; or a barbecue beetroot steak with sauce bearnaise.

Drinks are minimal-intervention Aussie wines backed by a cocktail list of classics and nostalgia-tinged signature drinks, and a clutch of tinnies.

The old Box Vintage premises on Vulture Street have been converted into a homely space stuffed full of timber tables, bentwood chairs and vintage photographs.

barfrancine.com

Gerard’s Bistro, Fortitude Valley

A reopening rather than a debut, but the iconic Gerard’s has been completely transformed on James Street.

Former Richards and Spence designer Jared Webb has helped deliver a striking fit-out that uses rammed red earth to create a series of freestanding walls that surround the dining room. There’s nothing else like it in town.

Working out of a rearranged kitchen, new exec chef Jimmy Richards’ first menu is relatively straightforward and woodfire-driven, as has long been Gerard’s approach, but now leans slightly more towards meat proteins.

You might eat South Australian calamari with a bazella tartlet and hawaij spice; wood-smoked mussels with green muhammara; whole butterflied coral trout with galayet bandoura (tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, olive oil and salt); and Westholme Wagyu cube roll with brown butter, baharat and nigella seed.

For drinks, restaurant manager Judith Hurley has expanded the wine list to close to 230 bottles. It bucks the tradition of organising varietals by palate weight, instead prioritising wines that best match Richards’ food. There’s also more of a focus on Mediterranean vino.

gerards.com.au

Short Grain, Fortitude Valley

Influential Longrain creator Martin Boetz returned to his hometown of Brisbane in September to open Short Grain in the Valley’s stately, heritage-listed Stewart and Hemmant building.

Anchoring the restaurant’s design is a solid European oak floor supplied by Tongue & Groove, and an enormous low-set bench Boetz inherited from Italian furniture brand Boffi Studio. Otherwise, it’s beautiful heritage brickwork, super-high ceilings, and enormous windows overlooking McLachlan and Marshall streets.

Star early dishes include a crunchy, fragrant signature turmeric wafer with coconut, prawns, peanuts and bean sprouts; salt and pepper cuttlefish with sweet soy and lemon; caramelised pork hock with chilli vinegar and coriander; fried whole market fish with caramelised turmeric, pineapple and fried basil; and, on the dessert menu, a restrained, precise duck-egg caramel custard tart.

The wine list has been kept concise and well priced. It leans towards New World aromatic whites and ambers, and flavoursome roses and chilled reds.

shortgrain.com.au

Pneuma, CBD

You wondered what might happen to Greenglass’ terrific dining room after the Votan brothers closed the classy French restaurant earlier this year to better focus on their East Street dining precinct.

Pneuma is about as good a result as anyone could’ve hoped for – a partnership between Restaurant Dan Arnold and La Cache a Vin’s Dan Arnold, and former GOMA Restaurant head chef Matt Blackwell. It opened at the start of November.

The only changes to the fit-out are for now mostly cosmetic: the steep, dark, anonymous staircase from George Street remains, as does the bright and airy dining room, which has been given a fresh coat of white paint and some spotlights.

Blackwell is taking the lead with the food. His first menus have featured dishes such as smoked eel cream with black apple and prune, and crispy potato; roasted monkfish tail with a smoked onion and mussel beurre blanc, and garlic chives; and braised wagyu beef cheek with caramelised onion, green peppercorn and bone marrow.

Pneuma’s cellar runs to about 150 bottles. It includes a reserve selection with some wallet-emptying deep cuts, such as a 2005 Rockford Basket Press shiraz, and a 2009 vintage Le Carillon d’Angelus merlot, cab sav and cab franc blend from Bordeaux.

pneumarestaurant.com.au

Establishment 203, Fortitude Valley

A steakhouse owned by one of largest integrated cattle breeding, processing and distribution businesses in the world doesn’t necessarily fill you with confidence.

But Stanbroke’s Establishment 203 begins to overturn those preconceptions as soon as you walk through the door. The design is a looker, the old Monastery and Oh Hello nightclub space transformed with fluted marble, glass bricks, antique mirrors and enormous velvet booths.

In the kitchen, former Surfing the Menu co-host Ben O’Donoghue is using a Mibrasa woodfire cooking station and an enormous MKN induction system – the first of its kind in Brisbane – to cook a relatively efficient menu that includes wood-fired marrow bone with caponata and bruschetta; Mooloolaba king prawns with zucchini trifolati, lemon and Calabrian chilli butter; house-made pastas such as spaghetti alle vongole, cappellacci filled with roasted pumpkin and buffalo ricotta; and a steak menu that features 14 different cuts such as a three-score 1.1-kilogram dry-aged Angus tomahawk, and a six-score wagyu rib eye.

A 230-bottle wine list balances its whites and roses between old world and new, before things take a turn for the Italian with a healthy collection of barolos and barbarescos.

establishment203.com

Settimo, CBD

Guy Grossi made his Brisbane debut at the Westin Hotel in February with this Amalfi Coast-inspired 150-seater.

The design captures its coastal Italian inspiration via terracotta tiling, timber tabletops, VJ-board walls, plenty of greenery, and a liberal use of bright oranges and blues.

For food, there’s Amalfi lemon chicken with chilli and rosemary; pasta al limone; and a scialatielli all’amalfitana made with hand-cut scialatielli and served with seafood and colatura di alici (the famous Amalfi anchovy sauce that’s the restaurant’s signature flourish).

For drinks, there’s a 170-bottle wine list that focuses on Italian vino and Australian drops made in an Italian style – including a healthy selection from Queensland producers. There’s also a tight selection of signature and classic cocktails, and a collection of amari and grappa.

settimo.com.au

Tama, Fortitude Valley

You’d be forgiven for being cynical about Tama, a slick 80-seat restaurant opened by Artesian Hospitality, which has a background mostly in Gold Coast day and nightclubs.

But it announced its ambitions early by enlisting former Otto restaurant manager and award-winning sommelier Alan Hunter as partner and restaurant director, and bringing celebrated chef Richard Ousby onboard to oversee the food.

It’s a looker in the flashier sense, the restaurant floor rendered in marble and stone, and boasting cavernous green velvet booths, an angular art deco-inspired feature wall and double-story windows that look onto Winn Street.

For food, Ousby’s broad menu features dishes such as a green gazpacho with nectarine, tomato, zucchini and macadamia; yellowfin tuna crudo with kohlabi rémoulade and fennel; and Moreton Bay bugs cooked in a charcoal-powered Josper oven. Elsewhere, there’s a house-made pasta menu; a beef menu that features cut-to-order seven-score Wagyu scotch fillet; a snacks menu; and a bread, oyster and table-side caviar menu.

For drinks, Hunter has compiled a 500-bottle wine list, backed by a glass-enclosed cellar that has capacity for another 1700 bottles.

tamadining.au

Komeyui, Spring Hill

This slick Japanese restaurant expanded from Melbourne at the start of the year, opening in a crisply detailed dining room high on Wharf Street.

Komeyui’s menu is split into omakase and a la carte, and ranges from seasonal sashimi, nigiri and steamed items – you might eat locally sourced kingfish, King George whiting, calamari and garfish, or scallops and tuna belly imported from Japan – to cooked dishes such as Wagyu tataki with beef, braised black pork belly, and Kyoto miso-marinated black cod grilled in a Josper oven.

For drinks, there’s a thoughtful selection of sake, a wine list of mostly Australian, New Zealand and French drops, and an imaginative signature-cocktail list.

komeyui.com.au

Lekki by Little Lagos, West End

Ade Adeniyi’s Little Lagos has proven crazy popular in Sydney since opening in 2020 – so much so that Adeniyi made his way up the Pacific Highway in July to open a second restaurant in a semi open-air space on Boundary Street in West End.

There’s not much to the fit-out other than some timber tables and bentwood chairs, a bar down one side and a banquette down the other, a heap of hanging photos, and a Nigerian flag and enormous portrait of Fela Kuti at the door. A well-powered PA system pumping out the tunes accounts for the rest of the venue’s charm.

Chef Kemi Fajemisin is cooking Nigerian-style jollof rice with chicken, ewa agoyin (slow-cooked, then pan-fried black-eyed beans topped with a fried red chilli sauce), ila alasepo (a finely minced okra soup with fish and beef) or egusi (melon seeds simmered with herbs, spices, green leaves and beef).

There’s also a marinated beef (or “buka”) stew cooked in a spicy sauce of tomatoes, red capsicum, habaneros, onions and traditional Nigerian spices; and a marinated goat stew that takes locally sources goat and cooks it much the same way.

For drinks, there’s a bunch of African beers (including Nigerian brewed Guinness Foreign Extra Stout), a handful of wines, and Nigerian-influenced cocktails.

lekkibylittlelagos.com

Bar Rosa, South Brisbane

From Cordell Khoury, Paolo Biscaro, Aleks Dzajkovski, Anthony Nicastro, Stefan Angelovski and Enrique Rosa comes this slick Italian eatery, which sits in the old Gauge space on Grey Street, around the corner from sister venues Julius Pizzeria and Bar Brutus.

Bar Rosa has kept the same basic 40-seat layout as Gauge but remade it in concrete, timber and flashes of marble. There’s also an outside dining area that seats 20.

For food, there are straight-ahead snacks and small plates such as fried zucchini flowers, beef skewers with salsa verde, grilled calamari with lemon and rocket, and pizza fritta with burrata and a tomato sugo. There are also three pastas, three mains, three sides and a pair of desserts.

Drinks are a focused wine list of mostly Italian vino and a handful of signature cocktails, with some aperitivi and beers thrown in for good measure.

barrosa.com.au

Mini, Fortitude Valley

Mini is brothers Cameron and Jordan Votan (Happy Boy, Snack Man) bringing their love of French cooking home to East Street in Fortitude Valley.

Dishes change seasonally but chef Aubrey Courtel might be cooking potted confit duck with whipped potato and comte cream; baked scallops with chorizo, celeriac cream and bread crumb; chicken cordon bleu; pan-fried fish with beurre blanc, cherry tomatoes and spinach; and slow-braised wagyu in a red wine sauce. The only plate priced more than $50 is a char-grilled Cape Grim rib-eye. All mains come served with frites, with other sides available.

For sweets there’s a creme brulee, sorbets and ice creams, chocolate many ways, and a nut, praline and chocolate cookie.

The wine list is a tightly curated selection of mostly French small-producer vino, with the Happy Boy and award-winning Snack Man cellars available if you want to go deep. Otherwise, it’s a short list of beer and classic cocktails.

The restaurant itself is the old Kid Curry space next door to Snack Man. It’s still the same modern 45-seat dining room with its top-to-toe spotted-gum treatment, slick lighting and open kitchen.

minibistro.com.au

Honourable Mentions

La De Lah – Gun chef Eugene Lee tackles the flavours of his native Malaysia in this moody open-air South Bank restaurant.

Uncle Lai’s – One of Brisbane’s best char kway teow spots reopens in unassuming new Greenslopes digs.

Fosh – Michael Tassis’ (Opa Bar & Mezze, Yamas Greek & Drink) seafood restaurant is serving Mediterranean inspired seafood dishes in an eye-catching riverside spot.

The Lex – Three Blue Ducks at W Brisbane transforms into a slick New York-inspired restaurant.

Ippin Dining – Co-owned by Sydney restaurateur Kenny Lee, Ippin is a flash, fast-paced Japanese restaurant upstairs at West Village.

Oh Monk – A colourful, fast-paced pan-Asian eatery in a charming Tarragindi spot.

Los Felix – The Talisman Group (Sasso Italiano, Casa Chow, South City Wine) open an unassuming but very legit Woolloongabba taco shop.

Da Biuso – An Italian fine diner in an elegantly presented bus from the Casa Nostra team.

Rich & Rare – Michael Tassis’ second opening of 2023 is a slick but value-driven steakhouse at West Village.

Vertigo – A one-of-a-kind dining experience atop Brisbane Powerhouse.