Otto Brisbane and chef Will Cowper are on the money
Otto Brisbane’s take on contemporary Italian with a view is a winning combination.
The walk to Otto Brisbane does not necessarily fill the diner’s spirits with culinary anticipation. True, South Bank, with its 1990s beach pool and more recently added archways of fuchsia bougainvillea, is scenic in its way. But the collection of tourist restaurants and depressing cafes that line the path to Otto, at the southern tip of this occasionally puzzling riverside precinct, are never going to inspire confidence.
How pleased you might be, then, to find Dom waiting as you take a sunny table at Otto. Dom is a perky chap, amiably enduring the lemon-and-white-striped shirt that’s part of his natty Otto attire. The colour seems to bring out the sunshine in him, or maybe it’s the glorious Brisbane weather doing its job, or that the river is so close you can smell the mangroves, for life seems to sparkle brighter once you’re here. An Aperol spritz seems suddenly in order.
Otto moved to South Bank in February, abandoning its original home in Queen Street, much like the rest of the corporate world. The South Bank site was free, given Victorian outfit Stokehouse had packed up and left, citing pandemic-induced border difficulties. Stokehouse joined a line of southerners — Matt Moran’s Aria springs to mind — to abandon their Brisbane ambitions. For outsiders, the northern market is tricky; they look after their own up here.
Otto isn’t the first restaurant you’d consider a natural fit for Brisbane. Expensive and flashy, the Sydney branch has lounged on Woolloomooloo’s beauty-spangled Finger Wharf for 21 years as a long-lunch destination for the establishment (John Laws has his own table). Nothing about it says Queensland particularly, but here we are and the restaurant is full.
Head chef Will Cowper presents a contemporary Italian menu that’s structured, boldly formal and unapologetically pricey.
Start with nibbles if you must, oysters, olives or a mound of Woodside goat’s curd soaked in truffled honey, offered with Sardinian flatbread, very good; but things warm up with a brilliant crudo di pesce: ribbons of raw kingfish – or whatever species is seasonal – generously splashed with olive oil, chilli flakes, mint sprigs and pops of fingerlime for zest, a sensation.
Move to a pasta list that offers a surplus of good eating. Queen is “champagne lobster” rolled though spaghettini with those most admirable of Italian enhancements: garlic, chilli, white wine, lemon butter and bottarga. Rich with umami punch, the excellent sauce is matched by the quality of the hand-rolled spaghettini delivered absolutely al dente, while the lobster, technically a “barking cray” (like the lovechild of a lobster and a Moreton Bay bug), offers a revelatory touch of the exotic.
From the pasta list, too, find ricotta and lemon-filled tortellini with shiitake, pecorino foam and chicken brodo; modern and terrific. Pasta is beautifully done here.
Some might be startled by the presentation of the daily market fish, a solitary fillet adequately fried, salted and offered solo on a big white plate like an objet d’art.
Our $70 is spent on coral trout fresh off the reef, so we get the impost. Still, it’s a strongman manoeuvre to stand by your produce so unflinchingly. Eat it with a rocket and radicchio salad for a lesson in simplicity. Be sure to finish with the Mela, a pretty, constructed dessert of Valrhona caramelia with apple and honeycomb, both sweet and tart.
Otto Brisbane isn’t breaking new territory, nor is it seeking approval to be cool. But its polish, restraint, the quality of its food and the warm professionalism of the service means it transcends that; it’s very good, better than, if not all the rest, then at least most. And if at times it feels a touch old-school, that may well be the secret ingredient to staying the distance in these parts.
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Otto Brisbane
Sidon Street, South Bank, South Brisbane, Queensland
ottoristorante.com.au/brisbane
Hours
Lunch Friday-Sunday; dinner
Wednesday-Sunday
Typical prices
Snacks: $6-$22; starters $32-$50; mains $55-$70; desserts $20-$22.
Score 4/5