A promising new trend has emerged in Brisbane this year: young first-time venue owners have been opening exciting venues in interesting spots, from restored churches to former car garages. In addition to the young local owners, interstate heavyweights are also investing in Brisbane ahead of the 2032 Olympics, with Andrew McConnell opening two venues along the river and Sydney’s Sokyo getting a northern outpost. Local industry leaders are also continuing to shape the scene, with two Hong Kong-inspired venues: one from the Southside team and one from Louis Tikaram.

As all these new venues open, the lines between bars and restaurants are blurring, with many bars serving restaurant-quality fare and restaurants expanding their drink offerings to feature truly innovative tipples from Chinese wines to tins and ’tinis.

All in all, it's been a very good year for Brisbane food and drink. Here, in alphabetical order, are the best new bars and restaurants that opened in Brisbane in 2024.

Earlier in his career, Italian-born Dario Manca worked alongside chefs such as Antonino Cannavacciuolo, Heinz Beck, Gordon Ramsay and Giovanni Pilu. This year, he opened a 28-seat fine diner serving eight- and 12-course degustation menus that range from cicchetti to larger mains, drawing inspiration from regional Italian classics. Over 80 Italian and local wines are backed up by a neat list of house cocktails.

There’s been no shortage of impressive openings in 2024, but August stands out even amongst this stellar group. In a heritage-listed, 136-year-old church, hospo couple Brad Cooper – formerly the head chef at Bar Francine and Florence – and Matilda Riek, who worked front-of-house at both venues, have opened August, a stunning, light-filled restaurant serving French-leaning classics. Begin with ox tongue and green tomato fritters, and an entrée of asparagus with hazelnut oil vinaigrette and hollandaise before moving on to radicchio with lamb breast and a mint-and-anchovy dressing, or a mud crab omelette. Larger plates include a foie-gras-stuffed chicken crown with peas à la Française and grilled flounder with vongole, butter beans and saffron butter. Riek is keeping the drink menu concise and approachable, offering a short list of classic cocktails, tins of beer, and a 30-bottle wine list.

Walking down Queen Street towards Eagle Street, you’ll notice an illuminated glass box filled with dry-aging ducks. It’s a sight more common in Chinatown or the streets of Hong Kong than in the Brisbane CBD but, at Central, it sets the tone for what’s to come. Descend a moody concrete staircase, and you’ll find yourself in a hidden cave-like space surrounded by 150-year-old rock walls. The basement restaurant is the newest venue from the Rick Shores and Southside team. Native Hong Konger Benny Lam is executive chef. He’s serving surprising takes on Hong Kong classics, like pineapple buns filled with crispy prosciutto and smoked butter, and fried dough served with smoked foie gras and Davidson’s plum jus. Other dishes include Wagyu beef tartare in a fermented soybean sauce and drunken chicken. There’s dim sum, of course, and larger dishes include wok-fried lobster noodles, triple-cooked Wagyu short rib, and roast duck with lilly pilly plum sauce.

Earlier this year, chef-sommelier co-owners Lachlan Matheson and Phil Poussart opened a cosy and considered diner in the spot that housed Matheson’s alma mater Pasta Club. The menu is packed with honest, produce-led cooking with starters including duck liver parfait served with Riser sourdough and a cold salad of squid, fennel, citrus and chicory; and mains of comforting vegetable pot pie with caramelised onion and gruyere, and fan-favourite sweet corn agnolotti. The drinks list includes excellent (and stiff) cocktails named after obscure guitar tracks, but as good as the mixed drinks are, you come to Gum Bistro to drink wine and the list, courtesy of Poussart (ex-Pilloni, Essa and Hobart’s Fico), is phenomenal.

For 25 years, the 140-year-old heritage-listed Naldham House was home to the members-only Brisbane Polo Club. After a prolonged vacancy and four years of meticulous planning, it opened in July as an ambitious multi-storey eatery. Inside there’s an elegant dining room – complete with grand piano – serving dishes like beef cheek bourguignon pithivier and a hefty 800-gram côte de boeuf. Outside, the 120-seat terrace has its own menu featuring potato and mortadella croquettes and cheeseburgers. Club Felix, on the first floor, offers a late-night supper club experience with cocktails, an extensive champagne list, and snacks like jamon and Comté toasties and fried whiting sandwiches.

Brothers Cameron and Jordan Votan are responsible for turning East Street into the buzzy dining precinct we know it as today with their venues Happy Boy and Snack Man, plus pop-up concepts like Kid Curry, Nice Thai and Mini. The former Mini space reopened in July as the permanent home of French eatery Petite. The corner spot includes 75 seats on the ground level and another 40 on the mezzanine. The menu, from chef Aubrey Courtel (who also helmed Mini), is a concise one-pager with around 20 dishes, each paired with French wines by the glass. You might match a glass of Jura savagnin with a steak tartare, topped with grated confit egg yolk and a side of pommes gaufrettes. Or an Alsatian pinot blanc with onion tarte tartin. You’ll also find dishes of goat’s cheese croquettes with thyme and honey; pan-fried fish in beurre blanc; confit duck; and Wagyu bavette with Cafe de Paris butter and fries. The menu highlight is the soufflés: you can bookend your night with them starting with a twice-baked cheese or prawn bisque soufflé and then close out your meal with a decadent chocolate variety.

Brisbane has been the lucky recipient of a few major interstate restaurants in recent years, but 2024 has seen the arrival of some of the heaviest hitters so far. Appearing in the new Queen’s Wharf development, Sokyo is the sibling of the acclaimed Sydney Japanese restaurant of the same name. One of the biggest drawcards at the Brisbane iteration of Sokyo is chef Alex Yu, a master of sashimi and charcoal cooking – two skills honed through his experience at Sokyo Sydney. Yu’s opening menu doesn’t stray far from the winning Sokyo formula. There’s a section dedicated to raw seafood – including Sokyo’s signature crispy rice topped with spicy tuna tartare, and around 14 different choices of sashimi and nigiri. From the robata grill, you might find Margra lamb loin with pickled Japanese plum or king prawns with lemon butter.

Just when we thought the Melburnian hospo migration ended with Lune Croissanterie, superstar Melbourne chef Andrew McConnell rolled into town and brought his famous lobster rolls with him. The opening of Supernormal Brisbane was easily one of our most anticipated openings of the year – partly because it marked McConnell’s first foray interstate, but mainly because McConnell himself told Broadsheet back in May that the sequel to his beloved Asian diner wouldn’t be a rehash of the original. He wasn’t kidding. Though the dumplings, crispy duck and those rolls are front and centre, Supernormal Brisbane feels, proudly, like a Brisbane restaurant. Here, you get river views to go with your roasted prawns slathered in shio koji sauce. The green terrazzo floors, rattan details and bamboo pendants together scream “Sunshine State”. And as you’re sipping a Mai Tai as you watch the elite waitstaff swan about the place, you can’t help but think: Supernormal makes total sense here.

How do you make one of the biggest restaurant openings of the year even bigger? You open a surprise second venue next door, of course. That’s exactly what Andrew McConnell did with the one-two punch of Supernormal and Bar Miette, the superstar chef’s first venues outside Melbourne, which opened within days of each other earlier this year. And while Supernormal is the star attraction, Miette holds its own with a sprawling riverside terrace upon which you can drain a few Campari sodas with Euro snacks on the side. Drop in before Supernormal or make Miette your main event. It’s open all day, so it’s your way or the highway.

You may wonder why a wine bar included on our best new openings list is called Milquetoast (another word for feeble, insipid, or bland). Despite its name, owners George Curtis and James Horsfall’s new opening is anything but weak. Milquetoast is stuffed inside a former CBD car garage down a laneway off Elizabeth Street, past the bright neon lights of late-night bourbon bar Alice. It’s got an industrial fit-out offset by homey mismatched vintage furniture, warm wooden surfaces and wine bottles lining the walls. An open kitchen and bar on one side of the space lets punters in on the action. The British-leaning menu is inspired by the owners’ shared English heritage, with opening highlights including devilled eggs, mushrooms on toast and Cumberland sausages with puy lentils and gremolata.

When Snug opened in March, it quickly earned itself a loyal following and a spot on our best cafes list. More recently, the Korean-leaning cafe has extended its hours, opening as a neighbourhood wine bar a few nights a week. The nocturnal menu includes small snacky share plates, about half of which are served raw, a common trend in Korean bars. Pick up oysters (with or without a sharp smoked tuna mignonette), Korean-style beef tartare with gochujang, and an abalone sushi bowl. For hot dishes, there are two standouts: mandu dumplings filled with sweet potato and corn, served in a heady shiitake broth and Snug’s beloved salted honey bread, with an almost-too-big dollop of garlic butter on the side.

Howard Smith Wharves, with its busy foot traffic, unparalleled views, and eclectic menus, has become the beating heart of Brisbane’s dining scene. Stan’s Lounge Bar, on the second floor of Louis Tikaram’s Stanley, is the newest kid on the HSW block. Along with Central, it’s the second Hong Kong-inspired venue to open in Brisbane in the latter half of 2024. The luxe, intimate lounge is designed for pre- and post-dinner snacks and sips. The space is all scarlet plush, with warm lighting and dark wood. The bar itself has the hallmarks of a speakeasy: a mirrored back bar and cosy seating. There’s a stylised recess housing vinyl (selected by Artemis group’s music director Dan McCarthy), a DJ booth and a vintage JBL sound system. Cocktails are workshopped classics: a Stan’s 75 (a take on the French 75) with the addition of fino, mandarin and Thai basil; a Lychee Martini with yuzushu; and the Dragon Margarita with dragon fruit and makrut lime. For snacks, Tikaram’s calling on his team downstairs to create a menu that marries its Hong Kong-inspiration with high-end techniques. There’s prawn toast with salmon roe and truffle mayo, XO sand crab cigars and one-bite Peking duck pancakes.

Additional reporting from Elliot Baker, Lily Beamish, Kit Kriewaldt and Becca Wang.