These are the best of the best restaurants in Brisbane, as featured in our 2015 Restaurant Guide. You can find our current 2018 list of the best restaurants in Brisbane here.
But to look back at where we were all vying for a table in the River City in 2015, as well as click through to our most recent reviews on these restaurants, scroll on.
Esquire
There’s a palpable sense of game-lifting at Esquire. The sophisticated, Scandi-chic room and the poised, personable service team both seem to have been buffed and polished as though to set the stage for chef Ryan Squires’ exciting, often brilliant food.
Urbane
From the first shot of house-brewed kombucha to the doll-sized native fruit infusion that bookends your meal, this is an experience to savour.
Aria Brisbane
Matt Moran’s northern outpost sticks closely to the template set by the Sydney mothership, combining corporate-friendly décor, an enviable location, a hefty wine list that bristles with benchmark and boutique labels and a contemporary approach to fine dining.
Gerard’s Bistro
They’re smokin’ in Ben Williamson’s open kitchen: smoked curd adding a little mystery to roasted quail stuffed with date, rose and figs; smoked almonds in a stand-out dish of fried spicy cauliflower spiked with currant grapes; smoked potatoes and eggplant; burnt onions, butter and bread in several other richly flavoured shared plates on the modern Levantine menu.
Stokehouse Brisbane
Removed from its Melbourne home, transposed to a glam, breezy room on the Brisbane River, what does the Stokehouse brand stand for? In the main, light, bright, good times for the diner made possible by plenty of hard work behind the scenes.
GOMA Restaurant
Who knows why this light-filled gallery adjunct only opens for lunches, but if limited hours spark the kind of culinary creativity that’s on offer, we’ll happily forgo dinner.
The Euro
It takes skill and commitment to make overachievement appear so effortless. The interior is a study in understated chic, contrasting original brick feature walls and warm timber floors with a colourful, ultra-modern ceiling feature.
1889 Enoteca
Get the potato gnocchi with pork and fennel sausage – there simply isn’t a more skilfully executed version of the classic dish to be had in these parts.
Bacchus
Rydges doesn’t exactly leap to mind when you think “complex dishes delivered with brio”. But that’s what you’ll find beside the pool on the first floor here.
Tartufo
Just when you thought it couldn’t get more Italian, Tartufo hives off a slice of its high-ceilinged dining room, installs a wood-fired oven, and offers authentic Neapolitan pizza goodness.
