Restaurant review: Detour, Woolloongabba

Detour’s staff have beards and tattoos, but they welcome you warmly and radiate experience. Interesting menu too.

Detour. Picture: Jeff Camden

Logan Road, near the Gabba, surely represents salvation for down-to-their-last-Mercedes landlords in a climate of crumbling bricks-and-mortar retail. It’s one of those inner-city strips you’ll find in every Australian city that has morphed, over the past five years, from a couple of eating places to a dense fog of dining, drinking and caffeinating options. Landlords must smile every time they see a beard, a tattoo and the look of small business optimism on the face of a prospective tenant.

Naturally, there’s wheat and chaff. For every overpriced new joint with arrogant staff who expect you to buy into the nobility of the hospitality industry, there are stayers such as Pearl and Enoteca, and interesting newbies such as Detour.

Sure, there are beards and tattoos at Detour; there’s also a warm welcome, systems, proper napery and a general sense of professionalism so often missing in new restaurants plying the smart/casual route. The place radiates experience, even though it’s less than six months old.

First thing you’ll absorb is the look. It’s terrific. A warehouse-like space with high ceilings, exposed joists, raw brick, unfinished plaster, acres of copper and vintage commercial light fittings. Add a thoughtful (if a little pricey) wine list serviced by a good sommelier, and Detour has it all to lose. It doesn’t.

Cured black kingfish at Detour. Picture: Jeff Camden

It’s a restaurant that slides easily into the category of places I’d be happy to revisit for its overall solid hospitality and tasty food, particularly with a group. Please don’t interpret that as faint praise. The menu format, designed around two columns — “omnivore” and “herbivore” — really only works for sharing. It’s a really interesting menu. There’s something called “Seawater Potato”, for example. And “Gunpowder Salmon” with green curry and black ants. Dishes arrive according to the kitchen’s whim, but that seems to work well, too. Again, it suggests experience.

Firm, excellent leaves of cured black kingfish (pictured) are garnished with tomato jelly and seeds, candied shreds of horseradish, baby celery tips and caviar-like celery pearls. A fine dish.

A very generous serving of diced emu tartare is sensitively and cleverly flavoured with charred shallot, and dotted with little splodges of cured egg yolk and dill. Emu meat is excellent eaten raw. My only misgiving is the biscuity, lavosh-like canoe it all arrives on.

Conversely, the way a lovely vegetable dish arrives, in an open-topped timber box, is a hoot. And the combination of chargrilled chunks of broccoli with spinach and seaweed, tossed in a sweet miso dressing with crunchy, toasted quinoa, is inspired — all fermented sweetness and briny accents.

While I like the idea of DIY, a piece of wagyu brisket, nicely caramelised on the crust, doesn’t quite cut it: the ’slaw alongside is bland and the commercial wheat flour “tortillas” are just wraps, really. The “Do Not Order Hot Sauce” is indeed unbelievably hot. It’s a boring sort of dish by comparison.

We drink some good wine — Father’s Milk pinot, by the glass — and have a couple of reasonable desserts: appley, parsnippy treacle puddings and a chocolatey “marquis” (sic) with a few minty collaborators. OK, desserts rarely thrill me anyway.

But, as I said, I’d go back. And so said my (local) guests, for whom the idea of eating uncooked emu was almost certainly anathema. It has broad appeal and positive attitude. Detour is worth one.

Detour
Address: Shop 6, 11 Logan Road, Woolloongabba, Qld | Contact: [phone]; detourrestaurant.com.au | Hours: Lunch Thu-Sat; dinner Tue-Sat | Typical prices: Smaller $26; larger $36; dessert $16 | Like this? Try … Petition Kitchen, Perth; Peel Street, Adelaide Summary: A solid performer. Score: 3.5 out of 5