Rick Shores team finally unveils its long-awaited Gold Coast sequels
They’ve been five years in the making, but Norte and Sueno were worth the wait. Take a look inside.
Five years of planning. Months upon months spent researching and cooking in Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Brazil and Colombia. A build overseen by one of the country’s most in-demand design teams.
The investment in time and money that’s gone into Norte and Sueno is intimidating. But it probably has to be when you’re following up Rick Shores, the Gold Coast’s most iconic modern restaurant.
“I’m not sure we feel a weight of expectation,” says Nick Woodward, who co-owns Norte and Sueno with David Flynn, Frank Li and chef and new partner James Brady. “It’s more anticipation because so many of our regulars are excited about it.
“We’ve been working on it and talking about it for long enough now, but we’ve also been quite selective in what we’ve been telling people. They’ve been driving past, watching it slowly come together. Now it’s about sharing it with everybody.”
Norte and Sueno open tomorrow inside the new Oxley 1823 development in Mermaid Beach. Norte is a restaurant that ranges across Latin American cuisine cooked on an enormous custom-made hearth, Sueno a rooftop bar with a focus on hard-to-find tequila and mezcal.
In charge of design of both venues was Jared Webb’s J.AR OFFICE, fresh off its work in Brisbane on the Hong Kong-inspired Central – the group’s most recent opening – and a late-2023 facelift of Gerard’s Bistro, for which it won a coveted Eat Drink Design award.
The result is a pair of venues that look to capture the spirit of Mexico City’s modernist architecture. Norte is decked out in black slate, brown limestone and woven textiles, and boasts a showstopping vermiculated waffle ceiling. The standout features are an open kitchen with its hearth, and a red metal staircase that sits in the centre of the venue, leading up to Sueno.
As for Sueno, it’s a semi-open-air affair intended to reflect the feel of an arid landscape, with splashes of colour and potted greenery.
The food at Norte is anchored by the hearth with its parrilla-style grill.
Snacks and smaller dishes include a Mooloolaba spanner crab churro with cucumber, apple and jalapeno, an al pastor-style Moreton Bay bug taco with pineapple, a fish taco with charcoaled spring onion and a Tasmanian pepper berry emulsion, and a beef tostada with fermented chilli, agretti and a taki kombu.
Mains include a flank steak with native chimichurri and caramelised onion, and slow cooked short rib with al pastor aji amarillo and pineapple.
There’s also a whole fish menu that features grilled coral trout with a koji butter, guacachile and green pico de gallo, and whole John Dory with garlic crema, dressed shaved zucchini and seasonal herbs.
The food is backed by 150 bottles of wine, with almost half the list occupied by Central and South American drops.
Upstairs at Sueno the food leans more towards snacks such as baby abalone with fermented habanero, bonito soy and pickled red onion; hiramasa kingfish and Ora King salmon ceviche; and champagne crayfish skewers with a chipotle butter.
For drinks at Sueno, the tequila and mezcal form the cornerstone of a cocktail menu with a bunch of variations on the classics that include a half-tequila half-mezcal margarita, and a capirinha that group beverage director Peter Marchant has previously described as “the best … I’ve tasted in my life.”
“When you walk in that front door and walk up those stairs, your jaw will hit the floor,” Woodward says about the finished venues. “It’s so impressive and everyone’s done an incredible job. It’s looking fantastic.
“It has such a capacity to [transport the guest], it could work anywhere in Australia.”
Norte open Tue-Sun 12pm-late
- More:
- Food
- For subscribers
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.