Seagrass

LOCATION
A quick walk over the Brisbane River, at the start of West End.

PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIA
With a name like Seagrass Boutique Fish and Chippery, you could be forgiven for expecting a menu entirely made up of crumbed, beer-battered and sufficiently greasy fish fillets. This isn’t the case. In fact this charming West End restaurant offers an attractive, and highly varied, breakfast, lunch and dinner spread. Don’t be intimidated by the crisp white linen table cloths either; Seagrass is not pretentious and has an intriguing menu and reasonable prices. The chef, bursting with innovative creativity, has designed a modern Australian menu that merges local, European, and Asian flavours and weaves fresh seafood throughout.

Fittingly expressed as “boutique fare”, nothing speaks special like cinnamon porridge with caramel figs and cream for breakfast. All tastes and morning needs are also met with the simple goodness of thick-cut toast, the classic “big brekky” or mini sweet potato and leek frittatas. Lunch kicks off the underlying focus on seafood with the likes of salt and pepper calamari, wonton crab salad and the “oh so fresh” catch of the day. All fish aside, there’s also a nice mix of non-seafood options like the robust rib-fillet steak sandwich and a tasty chickpea patty creation which involves a fresh salad and rich tomato relish. I must admit I’ve never been as pleasantly surprised by a bread-based goodie as I was with Seagrass’ interesting spin on traditional bruschetta – toasted Turkish bread with slow-roasted bell peppers, roma tomatoes and a thick balsamic reduction. Dinner will have you salivating over mains like tender pork medallions served on sweet potato with a devilish apple balsamic glaze, while the impressive seafood platter will charm the taste buds off any ocean enthusiast. With an assortment of hand-picked king prawns, Morton Bay bugs, calamari, lobsters, oysters and baby octopus it leaves little to be desired.

Katharine Chapman