VINTAGED BAR & GRILL
Brisbane, Queensland

Vintaged is a bistro style restaurant having a chef’s hat from the Good Food Guide and it is well deserved with a wide variety of modern Australian dishes celebrating fresh ingredients in dishes such as a charcuterie selection of meats, fresh cured salmon, carpaccio of wagyu beef, lamb shoulder to share amongst friends and a selection of meats from the grill. It is a hidden restaurant as it is within the Hotel itself on the sixth floor and only does trade with people in the know missing clientele of people walking by in the Queen Street Mall. The first time that I had experienced Vintaged was in my twenties when I was introduced to new cocktails at the bar on a Friday night. There weren’t that many people there as not many people knew about the bar as was the same the night of this dinner. The restaurant however was full early in the evening but was emptied out by 10pm.

The restaurant has a number of special tables such as a chef’s table, wine table and private dining. We were placed in the private area with a single table for the nine of us to dine at. We felt special as our exclusive menu was projected onto the wall displaying each course one by one. The wine glasses on the table were set out for the matched wines that accompanied the menu but only one of us could cope with seven wines for the seven courses that we were going to have.

Our first course was amuse bouche which was a seared scollop with asparagus and dill which was then followed by cured salmon. The cured salmon was fresh and smelt of the sea. The citric flavours that were used to cure it were followed with segments of orange and blood orange and were accompanied with its sisters dill and fennel. A change it texture followed with a crisp, shredded duck and green salad dressed in an Asian inspired soy and sesame oil dressing. Returning to fish, a carpaccio of fresh tuna was accompanied with two other sisters from the sea, ocean roe and a crisp green wakame seaweed. A rich textured pork belly with a crisp crackling was married with a silky smooth apple puree that tasted like the very essence of the apple had been extracted. This was accompanied with a remoulade of julienne celeriac tasting of rich and creamy mayonnaise to go with the richness of the pork belly. From the grill was a an extremely tender fillet of beef cooked medium rare accompanied with a silky smooth, buttery and creamy potato puree and baby carrots. Finally to end the meal was a deconstructed sundae of vanilla ice cream, a fresh raspberry, pieces of honeycomb, a sprinkling of peanuts, raspberry coulis, fresh cream and a flower which was present on each dish and linked the dishes together.