Chanoyu Japanese infused cafe
NOTE: In July 2023, Chanoyu moved to a new location in 56 Nerang St., Nerang. It’s the Matcha chocolate ganache tart that gives it away – a pretty little pie case filled with two shades of green chocolate filling… “Oh my! There’s real talent here,” we think. “I wonder who’s in the kitchen?” There’s something […]
Black Lime Café
While ‘Location, location, location’ is the big catch cry to success, there are some local favourites that have achieved modest success by going against the norm, choosing venues in hidden pockets of suburbia. There, they provide service to locals who previously had no food outlets nearby. That’s how it is with Black Lime Café. Tucked […]
La Barrita
“How come we’ve never been here before?” We shake our heads as we walk away from La Barrita, impressed. Nestled in between Fins and Bombay Cricketers Club in Salt Village, La Barrita opened in December 2017, slipping quietly onto the tail end of the ‘Mexican wave’ of coastal openings. While the opening of some restaurants […]
Home Plate Kitchen
NOTE: Home Plate Kitchen now has new owners. …. Tucked around a corner off Mattocks Road, it’s unlikely that you’d stumble across Home Plate Kitchen unless you’d previously heard about it. But there are lots of reasons why you should seek it out. Firstly, it’s a real ‘local scene’ café. Owners Jess Kaimoana and Shayne […]
Mockingbird Cafe
Every so often you meet someone whose enthusiasm is the driving force of an establishment. So strong, in fact, that it’s like a magnetic field, drawing you into its energy. At Mockingbird Café, Kingscliff, that force is Jo Jackson. We’d first met Jo at her very successful restaurant, Signature Dish in Varsity, where she not […]
Hot Shott
Gold Coast café culture has done well from the downward shift in fine dining culture. Hot Shott is no exception. An example is owners and business partners, Chef Kellie Rolfe and Barista Jenna Finch, who took the opportunity to move from their jobs at Palazzo Versace to open their own business in Main Beach in […]
The Collective
FROM THE ARCHIVES: NOTE: The Collective has new owners. … Every so often something radically different comes along in the dining scene – an idea that, while generated from elsewhere, is given new life in our present-day culinary context. The Collective at Palm Beach is just that. A restaurant version of a food market, The […]
Jasmine Room
Southport’s star continues to rise with the opening of the Jasmine Room Chinese restaurant. Owned by Chinese restaurant royalty, the Cheng family (ex-Landmark, Sunnybank), who also own the very successful Dragon Cove, Jasmine Room is situated on the second level of the Meriton Sundale building, Southport, overlooking the Broadwater. In this peaceful, relaxed venue, diners […]
Griffith Street Larder
Sometimes a new owner can bring a breath of fresh air into a place. That’s the feeling we get with Griffith Street Larder. Early in 2016, Kylie and Dennis Bastos settled on the Gold Coast leaving Melbourne’s cold winters behind. Their purchase of the already successful Larder, formerly owned by the crew from Blackboard Coffee, […]
Cadence Cafe
You never know what you’ll come across when you get away from the big smoke. Everyone is pretty familiar with the talent showing up on the coastal strip, particularly on the south end, but head out into the ‘burbs towards the highway, and even beyond, and there’s some damned great eating to be had. We’d […]