One of 2024’s best new bars is in a surprising heritage location
Don’t know Barry Parade? You need to seek it out for this boozer serving clever cocktails, Australian wines and craft beers, and Creole-influenced comfort food.
Brisbane’s bars had become a minor source of frustration in recent years. While the city’s restaurants, cafes and bakeries have come on strong over the past decade, our boozers seemed stuck in gear.
If you wanted a terrific cocktail, great – venues such as Death & Taxes and sister venue Dr Gimlette, and Savile Row had you covered. But there was a lack of new ideas in the scene. It didn’t help that we lost some modern classics in that period, including The Bowery, The Cloakroom Bar, Super Whatnot and, most recently, Alba Bar & Deli.
But over the past 18 months, things have begun to change. Flying Colours, Alice, Milquetoast, Club Felix and the relaunched Alliance Hotel have all added much-needed variety to the ranks.
You can now add Barry Parade Public House to the list. Barry Where? Exactly — that Daniel Gregory, Brennen Eaton and Lachlan Henry have opened this sophisticated neighbourhood boozer in what many would consider a relatively unknown byway between the CBD and Fortitude Valley illustrates a confidence in what they’re peddling.
“We feel it’s unique. That neighbourhood bar but done really well doesn’t really exist in Brisbane,” Gregory says. “We were looking at places in the CBD, but I’m glad we went off the beaten track — it’s worked out well.”
And Barry Parade Public House is drawing punters from the surrounding neighbourhood, not just the Spring Hill apartments and the workers’ cottages beyond St Paul’s Terrace, but also the surrounding office blocks. They’re coming for a focused list of cocktails, small producer Australian wine, and local craft beer on tap and by the bottle and can, along with a Creole-influenced menu of bar snacks.
They’re also coming for the venue itself, which occupies a heritage-listed terrace building that dates back to 1928. It has to be one of the most elegant new bar builds in recent memory, with Gregory, Eaton and Henry working on the design themselves.
The result is a space defined by a high-set, handsome hardwood bar, timber wall panelling, pendant lights and eye-catching original terrazzo flooring. There’s a banquette down one side of the room, with al fresco seating out on the street and a newly built timber courtyard with bench seating out back.
“So I just had some drawings,” Gregory says, “which weren’t the greatest. But we had a really good trio of builders [from AFT Constructed]. We gave them the drawings and kind of winged it from there.
“Especially in the back corner where there’s group seating,” Eaton adds. “We were going to have that as storage but one of the builders said, ‘Why don’t we just cut in and put more seats there?’”
As for drinks, between them Gregory and Eaton have worked at The Gresham, Alba Bar & Deli, The Bowery, Black Pearl (Melbourne) and Eau de Vie (Sydney), so expect plenty of approachable innovation on the cocktail list.
You might order a Broken Spanish (Oloroso sherry, Flor de Cana seven-year-old rum, brown butter falernum, lime and pineapple), the Verona (Hine VSOP cognac, Campari, Burdekin virgin cane spirit and Punt e Mes vermouth), or a Rosy’s Fizz (Four Pillars Bloody Shiraz gin, bianco vermouth, Mancino Chinato vermouth, Aperol, acid blend, Heering cherry liqueur and creme de violette).
Wines have been kept relatively wallet friendly, with only a clutch of bottles ranging above $150, and a generous number available by the glass. You can expect the venue’s three beer taps to rotate regularly.
Gregory and Eaton say to expect the food to evolve as the venue finds its feet, but the menu is already more interesting than your typical bar snacks. The standout dishes include a fried prawn po’ boy with iceberg lettuce, tomato, pickles and herb aioli, and a pulled duck and smoked sausage gumbo with mustard greens and sourdough.
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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.