{"id":84707,"date":"2026-09-01T05:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T05:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/84707\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T05:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T05:32:11","slug":"new-brisbane-restaurants-cafes-and-bars-to-try-this-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/84707\/","title":{"rendered":"New Brisbane Restaurants, Cafes and Bars To Try This Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

The year kicked off with a bang, as 10 new openings<\/a> slid onto the scene over summer. In autumn<\/a> and winter, things stayed consistent with six new openings in each season.<\/p>\n

As we move into spring and the city starts heating up again, these are the five new Brisbane spots \u2013 and one Gold Coast opening \u2013 that should be on your radar.<\/p>\n

\"Courtesy<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Bistro Margaux<\/p>\n

Bistro Margaux, Mermaid Beach<\/p>\n

In recent years, Nobby Beach has built up an attractive dining precinct featuring major developments and serious hospitality operators. Bistro Margaux<\/a> is one of the latest to open in the decidedly up-and-coming area. But rather than focusing on the new, Margaux is a French bistro with old-school bones and charm. Lars Kollrepp<\/a>, the chef-owner behind nearby Lars, wanted Margaux to feel like the kind of place you could settle into for an afternoon or evening.<\/p>\n

The menu is built around the pleasures of traditional French cooking. Start with a warm baguette and whipped Lescure butter or oysters with a zesty mignonette. Escargots come cooked with plenty of garlic and parsley butter. For something fresher, cured Ora King salmon comes with cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche and horseradish, while the obligatory steak tartare is served with crisp frites. The more substantial dishes lean into French tradition, too. Duck confit comes with potato gratin and a green salad, while steak frites is served with a choice of b\u00e9arnaise, pepper or entrec\u00f4te sauce. And the wine? All French.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/p>\n

Photo: Fergus Hurst<\/p>\n

San Telmo, Brisbane<\/p>\n

Interstate operators muscling in on home turf<\/a>. It\u2019s a story we\u2019re hearing more and more in Brisbane. Yet few have put in the effort like Ben Robinson and Mikey Dalton, who moved north three years in advance of opening a Brisbane outpost of Melbourne\u2019s Argentinian steakhouse San Telmo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 100-seat Edward Street venue was designed by Kate Archibald. The fit-out takes cues from the Melbourne original<\/a>: black-and-white tiling, tan furnishings and eye-catching pendant lights crafted from vintage soda bottles imported from San Telmo, the venue\u2019s namesake and the oldest barrio (neighbourhood) of Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n

The open kitchen is hard to ignore. That\u2019s where you\u2019ll find Dalton, who previously worked at San Telmo Melbourne and its sister restaurant, Palermo<\/a>. His opening menu featured all the Argentinian staples \u2013 empanadas, chorizo, morcilla (spiced blood sausage) and flan with dulce de leche \u2013 but also some less common dishes like chapa (grilled Argentinian flatbread), a spanner crab bomba with lemon aioli and piquant sauce, and tuna carpaccio with charred mandarin and sweet pepper escabeche.<\/p>\n

On the charcoal-fed parrilla, Dalton is using premium suppliers like Stockyard and O\u2019Connor\u2019s Premium Beef, with a 500-gram striploin and a 500-gram grass-fed rib eye on the menu.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/p>\n

Photo: Fergus Hurst<\/p>\n

Bistro Tino, New Farm<\/p>\n

Mosconi owner Mark Rotolone\u2019s grandfather Rosario ran Carramar Coffee Lounge in New Farm back in the 1960s, and Bistro Tino<\/a>\u2019s unhurried, European spirit feels like a nod to that legacy.<\/p>\n

Bistro Tino looks timeless. Rotolone brought together a group of friends to collaborate on the fit-out, including Meredith Burke of By Burke Design, architect George Kouparitsas, Mark Percival of SCD Timber and the Baldelli family of Art Sofa Upholstery. The result is a genuine contender for Brisbane\u2019s most stunning opening of 2026.<\/p>\n

The cafe has taken over the old King Arthur Cafe<\/a> site next door to Mosconi. There\u2019s a sleek Tasmanian oak bar, where you can order a $2 Single O espresso to drink standing up.<\/p>\n

For food, chef Alfie Cutler (ex-Golden Avenue<\/a>) worked closely with Mosconi head chef Catherine Anders to create a menu that diverges from the usual breakfast staples. There\u2019s pan con tomate (Spanish tomato toast) with raw yellowfin tuna and anchovy butter; potato and zucchini frittata with blue swimmer crab and cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche; and Abruzzese ham with house pickles, soft egg, comt\u00e9 and seeded bread.<\/p>\n

Later in the day, expect simple, hearty fare like pastina minestrone; chicken Maryland with pea fricassee and jus; and a Portuguese-inspired roll with pork collar, provolone and tomato relish.<\/p>\n

\"Courtesy<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Goodside \/ Markus Ravik<\/p>\n

Goodside, Brisbane<\/p>\n

The Fanda Group has turned Southside\u2019s Kiki kiosk into Goodside<\/a>, an Asian brunch cafe doing rice bowls, brightly hued drinks, and cha chaan teng<\/a>-inspired sandwiches. One particularly popular sandwich is Benny Lam<\/a>\u2019s prawn har gow katsu. It\u2019s made with bread baked to Lam\u2019s own recipe and a katsu-crumbed har gow filling which is finished with Chinese-style radish and jalapeno salsa.<\/p>\n

The rest of the menu is filled with salty, sticky ingredients. It features a cha chaan teng-style egg and ham sandwich, a ham and cheese pocket with sun-dried tomato, and two rice bowls, including one with pork belly, sticky soy, Asian greens and a tea egg (cracked and boiled in tea). Sweets include a matcha tart, and a baked coffee bun filled with cappuccino custard.<\/p>\n

To drink, there\u2019s a Goodside iced coffee made with double espresso, iced tea and condensed milk cold foam, and a lychee iced tea and watermelon mocktail, both finished with coconut cold foam.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/p>\n

Photo: Fergus Hurst<\/p>\n

Sancho Taqueria, Stafford<\/p>\n

When Amanda and John Scott told friends they were opening a restaurant dedicated to New Mexican cuisine, people thought they were crazy, but the venue based around the food of the US state opened on June 18. The couple \u2013 who also run Farmhouse Kedron and Oh Boy Bok Choy \u2013 are keen to educate Brisbanites on the intricacies of New Mexican cuisine, which owes as much to the region\u2019s 23 Native American peoples as it does to Spanish or US influence.<\/p>\n

Sancho<\/a> calls itself a taqueria and tequileria, but the menu is both more varied and more personal than that subtitle suggests. First up are New Mexican sopaipillas (puffy fried pastry dough). Typically served as a starter with chilli honey for dipping, here they\u2019re accompanied by red and green salsa. Pinto beans, corn and butternut pumpkin \u2013 all crucial to Native American agriculture in New Mexico \u2013 are present across the menu. But the full trio comes together in a dish developed by head chef Julius Villamor (ex-Baja) called the Three Sisters, featuring roasted pumpkin mole, bean hummus and chilli crisp, served with tortilla chips.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/p>\n

Photo: Fergus Hurst<\/p>\n

Sorai, Carina<\/p>\n

Burmese food is relatively hard to find in Brisbane, despite our sizeable Myanmar-born community<\/a>. The cuisine has been largely confined to stalls at the Global Food Markets in Woodridge and Kelvin Grove Village Market (Slurp Burmese), with bricks-and-mortar restaurants notably absent.<\/p>\n

That changed in late June when Warisan<\/a>\u2019s Alfie Musthafa partnered with three Myanmar-born friends \u2013 Laga \u201cBosco\u201d Htoi, Min Hein Kyaw and Su Sabai Zaw \u2013 to open Sorai<\/a>, a homestyle Burmese restaurant in Carina.<\/p>\n

The menu leans towards homey, traditional Burmese cooking, which typically features pickled vegetables, curries, salads and rice and noodle dishes. The lahpet thoke, a salad of fermented tea leaves, is a standout. The team seasons and marinates the tea leaves, before tossing them with cabbage, tomato, crunchy soybeans, peanuts and crispy garlic. It\u2019s a fresh, deeply savoury salad packed with texture. Other specialties include mohinga, Myanmar\u2019s national dish of fish noodle soup; Burmese chicken curry; and a kyaw sone, an assorted fritter platter featuring house-made tofu, onion, winter melon and potato served with a tamarind dipping sauce. There are also a handful of familiar Thai and Indonesian dishes, including pad thai, beef massaman and mie goreng.<\/p>\n

To drink, there\u2019s Burmese milk tea, a couple of Felons beers on tap and a concise cocktail list including a Mango Sticky Rice Pina Colada.<\/p>\n

Reporting by Alex Mitcheson, Elliot Baker and Kit Kreiwaldt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The year kicked off with a bang, as 10 new openings slid onto the scene over summer. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[249,99,255,250,253,252,251,254,227,248],"class_list":["post-84707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brisbane","tag-bars","tag-brisbane","tag-broadsheet","tag-cafes","tag-culture","tag-drink","tag-food","tag-guide","tag-lifestyle","tag-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}