The Best Restaurants in Brisbane

Updated 5 months ago

Share

What makes a great restaurant? Perhaps it pioneered a trend, and remains the most vital example of it. Maybe, after several decades in the game, it still feels as fresh and relevant as ever. Or maybe it’s been open less than a year and already feels like a future classic.

All are equally valid answers when it comes to determining the best restaurants in Brisbane. That’s why our list includes lively wine bars and other dressed-down eateries alongside the usual fine-dining institutions. The remit may be wide, but if you’re looking for restaurants that both define and capture the city’s culinary spirit, stop right here. These are the absolute best.

  • The Moubment Group’s best-regarded restaurant delivers innovative Middle Eastern cuisine in a texture-rich dining room.

  • Four of Brisbane’s best restaurant brains are behind this theatrical diner, featuring a woodfire-driven menu and impressive 1500-bottle wine list.

  • Family-style Greek from Jonathan Barthelmess, one of Sydney’s favourite restaurateurs.

  • The successor to Longtime, one of Brisbane’s most celebrated Thai restaurants. As the name suggests, the site’s DNA hasn’t fundamentally changed – but the service is sharper, the space is more beautiful, and the food is more vibrant than ever.

  • Widely regarded as one of the country’s best Greek restaurants.

  • If you’re after the cream of Italian dining in Brisbane, look no further. This place serves real-deal Roman food, and is officially recognised as one of the world’s best Italian restaurants outside the motherland for its stellar wine list.

  • SK is restaurateur Simon Gloftis’s second restaurant at The Calile Hotel, after Hellenika. But where Hellenika focuses on the delicate flavours of Greek cuisine, SK focuses on big and bold ingredients such as dry-aged beef and prestige seafood. The room is expansive and so is the wine list. If you’re after New York steakhouse glamour, this is where you’ll find it.

  • A two-storey Cantonese eatery with a star chef at the helm.

  • A two-storey Japanese izakaya with a beautiful bento box-inspired fit-out. Upstairs in pride of place is a pair of turntables, ready to spin vinyl tunes late into the night.

  • Meat, seafood and veggies from the grill, and an outdoor terrace at this rebooted Brisbane favourite.

    Book a Table
  • This beautiful, fast-paced and very fun Italian restaurant is from the Same Same and Agnes crew. Expect house-made pasta, stacks of antipasti and soft-serve gelato, accompanied by a 350-bottle wine list – all in one of Brisbane's most beguiling dining rooms.

  • This elegant Italian restaurant lives in the former Stokehouse Q site. It's a perfect fit – one of the city’s best restaurants deserves one of its best locations. Whether you're here for the main event or the more casual Otto Osteria, you're in for some superlative drinking and dining .

    Book a Table
  • From the man who brought you edible insects and Kentucky Fried Duck.

  • Via a long marble bar, this moody 60-seat restaurant puts guests up close and personal with its woodfire grill, used to cook an ever-changing menu that might include Black Angus short rib or pickled kohlrabi.

    Book a Table
  • A celebrated young gun cooks (and does the dishes) in a tiny, 10-seat omakase-style fine diner down a poky laneway.

  • One of the city’s favourite cooking schools has evolved over time into one of its best pan-Asian eateries. There's an extensive menu of punchy and flavourful dishes, plus multiple banquet options for groups dining. The ever-popular cooking school still runs Sundays and Mondays.

  • Polished, old-school service and European-inspired dishes are the pillars of this elegant bar and grill in the former Jamie's Italian space. Visit for stellar seafood dishes, a tight selection of pastas and a roving Armagnac cart with bottles dating back to 1931.

  • A 120-seat modern-Chinese restaurant.

  • Hit this south-side spot for soul-warming pasta, woodfired pizza and spinning Italo-disco tunes. For drinks, it’s birthday Negronis, an Aether-brewed Italian lager and 80-plus Italian wines.

    Book a Table
  • Beneath the old Metro Arts Centre building, chef Tim Scott explores not just his love of cooking (with an evolving menu of around 15 to 20 courses) but also art, artisans and producers – from hand-forged cutlery to a display of antique Japanese knives and shelves of fancy recipe books.

  • Modern Chinese food and a killer wine list from brothers Cameron and Jordan Votan.

  • Housed inside an 1890's brick building in The Valley, this moody Italian diner and wine bar lists more than 150 sustainable drops from Sicily and beyond. House-baked breads, pastas and antipasti sidle refined mains with a traditional twist.

  • Pizza that's been delighting Brisbane since 2004.

  • A European-style wine bar and bistro in South Brisbane.

  • You'll find this new wave French brasserie on the ground-floor of the luxe Hotel X. Enter for French favourites and remixed classics. Plus, a cheese trolley, an oyster and caviar bar, and a 200-strong wine list.

  • This Southeast Asian rooftop diner is headed up by a former Longrain chef. Try prawn and pomelo betel leaf wraps and soft-shell crab stir-fried with curry powder and Chinese celery, alongside an extensive list of wine, beer and spritzes.

  • Refined share plates and mezcal on a classy corner of Brunswick Street.