Andrew McConnell likes to talk about the ebb and flow of a city. It’s something he learned about Melbourne after opening Cumulus Inc, his first all-day venue, 16 years ago.

Now, his Trader House restaurant group, which he oversees with his wife, Jo McGann, is about to learn it in Brisbane with Bar Miette, the star chef’s first Brisbane eatery.

“It is difficult, but we ran Cumulus for [so long], opening at 7am,” McConnell says [Cumulus Inc now opens at 12pm]. “It’s a challenge, but you learn about the city around you – the residents – and they dictate how you staff, what you serve, how you serve, how fast people need it to be.

“You learn along the way and I don’t think that will be any different here. This is a big city and with so many residents around us and office workers, and the dog walkers coming through – it’s all happening, so it feels good.”

Bar Miette, announced relatively late and slotted into the Queen Street floor of the flash new 443 Queen Street residential tower, might feel like a bonus for Brisbane – it opened softly last week, a month before McConnell and McGann unleash a long-awaited local take on their enormously popular Supernormal restaurant.

But it’s a shrewd move, giving the city a Trader House venue of its own, and a completely different proposition to the 150-seat Supernormal that will open downstairs by the river.

Bar Miette, open from breakfast to dinner, is very much an open-air affair, with most of its 85 seats on a winsome terrace overlooking the river. Set high and framed by greenery, it eliminates any foreground distractions from the view, and is protected from the traffic on Queen Street by being tucked down a short hallway.

It gives the venue a surprisingly secluded vibe, and offers perhaps the best views of the Story Bridge since Otto opened in 480 Queen Street back in 2016 (before the then-under-construction 443 Queen Street began to get in the way).

Regular Trader House designers ACME have delivered on McConnell’s brief for a European-leaning wine bar through the use of green, yellow and blush-pink rattan furniture, brick-coloured tables outside, and a striking timber and copper bar inside. Otherwise, it’s a scattering of greenery and umbrellas and that’s about it – the location and the Brisbane tuff-inspired facade very much does the talking here.

For food, hatted executive chef Jason Barratt (formerly Paper Daisy) is overseeing two relatively straightforward menus: one for breakfast, and a second for lunch and dinner.

In the morning you can order a house-made spelt crumpet with whipped maple butter, walnut and banana; avocado toast with a boiled egg, miso butter and sesame; a croque monsieur; house-cured and smoked trout with seeded rye crackers, sour cream, pickles, dill and roe; and a seasonal breakfast plate with flatbread, pickles, olives, feta, hummus, a mollet egg and marinated vegetables.

The lunch and dinner menu is mostly about small- to medium-sized plates designed to be shared.

There’s seafood such as poached local king prawns with sauce rouille, raw Hervey Bay scallops with seaweed vinaigrette, and slow-cooked marinated octopus with potato, aioli and paprika; cured plates that include a mortadella stack on a milk bun with salted butter and smoked maple syrup, Fair Game wild venison salami, and cloth-aged saison hot salami (you can also order a selection of charcuterie); and items to have on toast such as crab mayonnaise, stracciatella, anchovy and pistachio, and tuna with smoked butter and chives.

There are also salads and sides such as a cold roast chicken salad with celeriac, horseradish, capers and a tarragon mustard dressing; a beef carpaccio salad with marinated artichokes, parmesan and black pepper; and a cold poached-pork number with butter leaf and sauce charcuterie.

Elsewhere on the menu, there are snacks such rock oysters, anchovy gilda and Marcona almonds, and a tight selection of cheeses and desserts.

For drinks, there’s a thoughtful cocktail menu that twists the classics, and a 70-bottle wine list that favours European varieties and New World wines made in a European style, with a good portion of the cellar dedicated to champagne. There’s also a keenly priced list of wines by the glass.

If this all sounds like the kind of eatery to fit around your day, rather than the other way around, that’s exactly the intention.

“I hate rules in restaurants,” McConnell says. “I hate being told that lunch is served only between 12pm and 2pm. I find that quite restrictive. So being open all day is really important. If I want a glass of wine and a plate of cheese at 5pm, I really feel we should be able to offer that.

“That’s why I called it Bar Miette, with the word ‘bar’ first. That means it’s not a restaurant, even though we’re serving a menu where you could have a restaurant-style experience. You’re still welcome to come and have a glass of wine and nothing else. We want to encourage people to use it however they want, at any time of the day.”

Open Mon-Fri 7am-10pm, Sat-Sun 8am-10pm

443 Queen Street, Brisbane

barmiette.com