gerard's bistro

great great great food! my fiancé took me here for my birthday and i was absolutely blown away =d personally i don't ever care too much about service, as i do not believe they are that important (i go to a restaurant for food, i don't '"eat" service), but unlike a lot of the reviews here our waiter was actually super friendly and was very helpful with the menu.

now, the important part, food. we ordered the slow cooked lamb on flat bread, waygu skirt, whole smoked eggplant, oysters and duck for two ppl, and finished with a spiced date bream with honeycomb. every single bite was a flavour explosion!!! i would say some food was slightly on the salty side but i love salt so no complaints there. especial mention on the honeycomb on the dessert plate, it was homemade and omg was it awesome.

we had 5 plates, 1 dessert and 2 cocktails, and the bill came out to $150 (or $120 just on the food). i do not believe this is expensive or outrageous as some ppl may suggest here, especially if u consider this as a degustation experience at $60/head, for the flavour you get it really was worth it. of course, i would probably suggest you to go get a fat piece of steak at chachachar or sth if you are hungry and want to pig out, but the 6 dishes that we had left us reasonably filled (as in i felt absolutely no need to stuff myself with mcdonald's after) and simply wanting more of it for nexttime=d

great food indeed.

expect to wait. we ate here as a large group and were extremely dissatisfied with thetimewaiting, portions and personally the quality of the meals for the price of $65 each. there were 7 dishes in the course which took over 30mins each to be served considering they were small appetisers. the food portion was extremely small as each of the 7 appetisers only offered 3 of each dish to share between a group just shy of 20 people. as for the wait, portion and price of the course per person, it is definitely not worth going as a large group and would be better value for money ordering from the main menu as you would actually get preference and your own meal, unfortunately this is not offered to large groups, so seriously consider other venues before getting sucked into the over hyped and dissatisfying experience at gerards bistro.

gerard’s bistro has been great everytimei’ve been and today we ordered everything on the menu, except for the rice pilaf.

highlights of the night were the noosa scallops, wood-roasted tiger prawns paired with the wood-fired bagel, celeriac filo and the jerusalem artichoke ice cream (a must try!).

the coral trout had so much potential with an amazing sauce but i’ve never had so much trouble physically chewing through this type of fish and its skin. maybe it was an off day? i didn’t deduct a star because of the great experiences i’ve had previously. i personally found the desserts (aside from the jerusalem artichoke ice cream) too sweet for my liking but i know others who loved them!

torbreck’s 2009 the factor barossa valley shiraz was everyone’s favourite drink of the night. i was skeptical of non-alcoholic wine but the non 5 lemon marmalade & hibiscus proved me wrong - it tasted like a savoury hibiscus tea~

i dined here on a monday night solo. it was quite busy but there were plenty of staff working. i was offered the option to sit anywhere and opted to sit at the bar. i had a gin cocktail which was refreshing and a great way to start the meal. for entrees, i tried a few of the singular pieces on offer which included a burghul cracker with coal infused hummus, a fresh oyster in a creamy style sauce and a buttered prawn. all were jampacked with flavour and could be eaten in 1-2 bites. for main, i had the confit cuttlefish with hazelnut puree, enoki mushrooms and bone sauce. the cuttlefish was sliced very thin and had a similar texture to pasta. i felt that the integrity of the seafood was well maintained in this dish and the flavours complemented each other. for the dessert, i opted for the "apple, oats and whey" which was a refreshing twist at the end of the meal and not sickly sweet. in addition, just wanted to call out the lovely lady who looked after me the entire evening. i believe she may have been a manager. she spent thetimeto explain all the dishes i asked about and provided honest recommendations. hope to visit again before i leave bne.

best outstanding food i found in this area.... best for couples, parents and friends .... very enjoyabletimewe had with my classmates.. they also did like it

dinner for two people on saturday night. we made an early booking for 6:15 pm to beat the rush and sat outside.
 

squid toast ($5x2) - wonderfully crispy and crunchy toast, an umami salt bomb of flavour. would order again. great way to start the meal. washed it down with a beer.

salted zucchini ($22) - light and airy dish, when the bite is just right it is tasty but miss even one of the elements in your bite and the dish is nothing exciting. would not order again.

bekaa wings ($18) - second favourite dish of the night. six delicious and crispy yet light wings covered in a somewhat mellow but very, very tasty sauce. rose was a little lost in the dish but added some need colour if nothing else to the dish. would happily order again.

fried cauliflower ($18) - our favourite dish of the night, a generous serve of what is these days a fashionable (pricey!) vegetable. tahini was surprisingly light in feel and taste and the pomegranates provided wonderful bursts of sweet and sour liquid throughout. smoked almonds for a very nice crunch. would happily order again.

slow-roasted brisket ($62) - our waiter couldn't recommend this dish enough and said it was the signature dish of the restaurant. the brisket (which serves two comfortably) arrived on the table in one large piece and was promptly seasoned simply with sea salt and shredded by our waiter. it was served with a very thin and almost brittle mountain style bread/wrap and seasonal accompaniments of pickled vegetables, creamy feta, dressed herbs, lemon wedge and a garlic (yogurt?) sauce. would not order again.

the brisket was our least favourite dish of the evening. the meat itself was either overcooked initially or kept at a temperature until service that resulted in the meat having a mushy texture. it was slightly dry unless you got a small part of the cut that was fattier than the rest. the meat was tender but almost mushy in mouth feel. the accompaniments were unfortunately all salty and really lacked an acidic and a sweet element. the pickled vegetables were more salty than acidic. although they did provide a nice crunch to counter the lack of texture in the meat this wasn't enough to make their added saltiness worth it. the feta was creamy but again it was a very salt variety and this once again added to the overall saltiness of the dish. the herbs were dressed lightly with that looked like a balsamic of some sort but their wasn't enough of it to really know for sure. the garlic sauce was a nice addition. the lemon wedge did provide some acid to the dish and cut through the fattiness of the meat but their was only one little wedge for a reasonably sized piece of meat.

my partner discovered that stealing a few pomegranate arils from the cauliflower dish and adding them to the brisket for some sour/sweet bursts of liquid improved the dish considerably and helped cut through the saltiness of the meat and sides.

i can certainly see the appeal of this dish but unfortunately on the night our brisket was not up to scratch and the seasonal sides lacked a sour and sweet component.

dessert - we asked for dessert menus and had a good look but nothing really grabbed our attention so we gave it a miss.  

staff - excellent service, personable enough to make us feel welcome but not overly chatty. water glasses were filled when empty but without it feeling like the staff were hovering. 5 stars.

final bill - food ($130), gerard's drunk punch ($16), estrella lager ($10), soda water ($4), tip ($15) = $175 for two people who left very full
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will we be back to try some more dishes? yes but thistimewe will bring help. gerard's is my favourite type of restaurant offering share style dishes where you get to have a little taste of everything. when ordering with just two people you need to be strategic as you will fill up quickly on their relatively generous portions. with a table of four or better yet six people, you get to try many more dishes! thus we will be back to give gerard's another shot but thistimewe will bring company.

a nearly perfect meal!

we came in for lunch and started with the pimms no. 1 and the drunk punch. both we perfectly balanced and not too sweet, albeit light on the booze. the atmosphere is spot on, and i was very pleased with the quality of the sound system- bonus points to having a track by caribou in the mix!

our server was fantastic and knew the menu well, taking thetimeto explain the concept (quasi tapas sharing plates) and make personal recommendations. on her suggestion we started with the squid toast (not shown on the online menus), which was perfection. at $5 each i assume the margins are tight on the one, as each piece of crusty/pan fried bread was well seasoned with two small tentacles on top. i could probably eat an entire meal of these, they were that good.

next we had the laham nayyeh (lamb tartare) which was a bit of a let down as it was way too salty (near the end all i could taste was the salt). sodium aside, the tartare was finely diced and well seasoned with an earthy flavour from the pickled cucumber. massive bonus points for using preserved lime on this!

for the mains we shared the suckling pig (aka pork belly) and fried cauliflower. both were fantastic, with flavours that were quite bitter until balanced by the sweetness of the accompanying sauces. the cauliflower was really bitter so i could see some people not enjoying it, but to me this was an awesome change of pace as the bitterness flowed perfectly with the whole toasted almonds. 

the above lunch for two was $130, and i will definitely come back for dinner. the only thing keeping gerard's from a perfect 5/5 was the saltiness of the tartare.

had dinner here on friday night. service was fantastic. ordered the sweetbreads and the wings for starters which were nice. had the wagyu brisket for the main and it was disappointingly tough. expected it to melt in the mouth but it wasn't great at all. also we ordered an expensive bottle of red (>$100) which wasn't even decanted. had a business dinner here in 2012 which was excellent in every respect, unfortunately thistimeit fell way short of the promise of a good dinner past.

one of the best meals i have had!! outstanding service added to the overall experience here. we ordered our meals after our waitress explained the menu. we paired our food with proseco. bread and the salted butter was surprisingly moreish. other entrees were kingfish and a smokey squid dish. both were innovative and delicious. for main we shared swordfish and whole eggplant- amazing. nexttimewe will save room for desserts which on paper sound just as tempting as all the other items on the menu.

i have been to gerard's bistro three times now, always as part of a group with a set menu. the firsttimei was amazed at the quality, tastiness, innovation and even the quantity of food for the price. i raved about it for ages.

the secondtimethe food and service were all fantastic until we got to the petit fours for dessert. there weren't enough to go around and i ended up with just one tiny treat.

last night the food was mostly great but we waited a really longtimebetween first and second course. our 7pm booking didn't end up with the main course until 8.30pm (yes, everyone was seated ontimeand as it was a set menu there was notimewasted with ordering).

the sourdough bread and smoked butter starter was divine. the butter was so smoky it reminded me of smoked salmon.

several of the dishes were difficult to eat and portion out from the middle of the table. for instance, the table of 8 was given 3 plates of white fish. everyone got just a small spoon. this was accompanied by broccolini and kale of which there was more.

the big let down was the wagyu beef. i didn't have any but others said it wasn't tender and the flavour was overpowering. the cauliflower, smoked almond and pomegranate accompaniment was delicious as always (i have had this on every visit).

desserts came and the nougat (which must be a signature dish) was fantastic. the other dish was dates with oats and ice cream. the oats added nothing to the dish. if they had been cooked into a nice granola they could have added some crunch but they were au naturale on the bottom of the plate and then there were big, tasteless flaky bits on top. the ice cream was aniseed and completely overpowered the taste of everything else. it was also difficult to share.

overall, the food and service were good but i feel this place is slipping and not keeping up with the increasingly tough pressure within the brisbane restaurant scene.

fabulous! yes, it's not cheap but you get what you pay for and @ gerard's it'll be worth it.
excellent service and fabulous food.
i've never left this place disappointed.

don't be shy and do try the chicken wings (they'll even give you a little wet towel to clean up).

word of advice - be prepared to order more than you'd normally would as its a bit minimalistic (it's all about tingling the senses) or do not go there starving.
one of my alltimefavourite restaurants in brisbane.

went to gerard's bistro for the firsttimelast night, and i have to say that the food was awesome. we ordered a number of dishes that we shared amongst 6 of us, all dishes were full of flavour and thoroughly enjoyed.
dishes we had included the cauliflower, slow cooked lamb neck, garfish special, and more.
desserts were also amazing.

had dinner here a week ago with a large group of friends. we had over 8 people so we had to choose one of the three set menus ranging from $45-$85. we ended up choosing the $45 one. the entrée was some organic house bread with smoked pepe saya butter. the butter was nice however the bread was quite salty. then we had the bekaa wings which were perfectly cooked and was rich in flavour. after a while the main dishes were brought out which included the wagyu brisket, fried cauliflower with pomegranate and the braised lentils with caramelised onion. some parts of the brisket were tender however several pieces were quite dry. the braised lentils were definitely not a crowd favourite either. and finally the dessert came out which was a citrus sorbet. the dessert was relatively nice however sharing between 2-3 or so people wouldn't have been satisfying enough. sad to say that although i was really excited to eat here, the set menu was a let down. may give the normal menu a try nexttimebecause i still have hope.

i visited gerard's for the firsttimerecently when i was deliriously tired and ravenously hungry after a busy overnight shift. i now know why this venue is so highly acclaimed. not only was i greeted with a warm and sympathetic smile, but i was presented with some of the best breakfast fare i've had in brisbane. the baghdad eggs with tahini yogurt on flatbread made my tastebuds tingle and my heart melt with delight. ignore the price - even if it means eating vegemite on toast for a week, every single cent of your breakfast is repaid to you in outstanding flavour. i would go back again in a heartbeat!

amazing -on par with melbourne restaurants for sure. we went to gerard's a few months ago (just after they won the top prize at brisbane times 2014 good food guide awards). i was a bit worried as i thought they would be very busy with every man and his dog wanting to be at the next best thing in brisbane, however, i was pleasantly surprised. although they were busy and we had to make booking in advance, the staff were very attentive. the 2 hour table seating arrangement is a bit annoying though as we didn't havetimefor desert by thetimewe finished eating. we were kind of rushed out the door at 8pm. it would have been nice to sit back, relax and enjoy the food a bit more since it was served meze style, gradually.

all the food was outstanding though. all the flavours were perfectly matched. clearly excellent quality produce and beautifully prepared. we were a table of 5 and were recommended to order about 10 dishes. as the food arrived we first thought we would leave with empty stomachs but we needn't have worried, we were full to bursting at the meals end. 10 dishes was a perfect amount of food.

for me the stand out dishes were the heirloom carrots, persian rice and the wagyu brisket -the brisket was delicious served with middle eastern breads, a tangy salad and yoghurt style sauce. yum!! salivating now!

so yes, i would definitely return in a heart beat. i just hope they can maintain their standards -especially since winning the weekend edition's award for best restaurant as well.