Restaurants in Queensland
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Enzo's on the Beach
A shabby-chic outdoor cafe with a superb beachfront location where you can dine on focaccias, wraps, healthy salads and light meals or just sip a coffee and wallow in the perfect ocean views. Active sorts can hire kayaks, surf skis and paddleboards or learn kitesurfing.
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Three Monkeys Coffee House
A family business for 14 years, Three Monkeys serves it up supersized – piping hot coffee and spicy chai come in soup bowls. Hide away in the cosy den, or wolf down your chocolate cake on the bench outside.
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Fatboy’s Café
The $4 breakfast at Fatboy’s is legendary: eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato and toast served any time (add just $1 after 5pm). It’s easily the best value hangover cure in town and it’s located smack bang in the action in the Brunswick St Mall.
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Mecca Bah
You can't book at this swanky Middle Eastern-themed restaurant, but that's OK because it serves great cocktails while you wait. If you're with friends then choose a pile of dishes to share: the Lebanese sausages and chickpea battered mussels are particularly yummy, as are the lamb pizzas.
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On the Inlet
At this restaurant jutting out over Dickson Inlet, tables spread out along a huge deck where you can await the 5pm arrival of George the grouper, who comes to feed most days. Take up the bucket-of-prawns-and-a-drink deal for $18 from 3.30pm to 5.30pm, or choose your own crayfish and mud crabs from the live tank. Great service, cool atmosphere.
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Tibetan Kitchen
Launch into a variety of zingy curries at this colourful restaurant serving Tibetan, Sherpa, Indian and Nepalese food. For larger groups, the banquet is the way to go. Afterwards, the Brunswick St Mall nightlife is a short stroll downhill.
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Watt
On the lower level of the Powerhouse arts precinct, Watt serves award-winning modern Australian fare. Start with the Queensland spanner crab or crispy duck salad before moving on to lamb striploin, seafood pasta or the daily catch perfectly grilled.
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Mondo Organics
Using the highest-quality organic and sustainable produce, Mondo Organics earns top marks for its delicious seasonal menu. Recent hits include pumpkin, leek and ricotta tortellini; lamb rack with wild mushroom risotto; and ocean trout with shaved fennel and saffron-infused mashed potatoes.
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Gunshop Cafe
A beautiful repurposing of a former gun shop with exposed-brick walls, sculptural ceiling lamps and an inviting back garden. Locally sourced menu changes daily, with favourites like eggs Benedict with vodka-cured ocean trout, grass-fed rib fillet with roast mushrooms, and grilled emperor with braised leek and bacon.
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Kookaburra Café
A gigantic 50-piece pizza, supposedly Australia’s biggest, is slightly oversized unless you’re in a group of 10 (or attempting a Guinness world record), so lucky there’s regular-sized pizza, pasta and salads here too. The outdoor courtyard makes dining in worthwhile.
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Little Larder
It's worth searching out this lovely café, and not just because it makes damn fine coffee. Try the thick French toast or pesto scrambled eggs and you'll soon understand what all the real fuss is about.
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Markwell Café & Bar
All seafood here is wild caught; mains include deep-fried coconut prawns dipped in beer batter, served with curry mayonnaise.
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New York Slice
New York Slice's enormous slices of tasty pizza are perfect for everyone from budget-conscious travellers to clubbers on their way home in the early hours of the morning.
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Ochre Restaurant
Red Ochre’s certainly creative with its dishes: expect goodies such as emu and vermicelli spring rolls, Australian antipasto, crocodile wanton and salt-and-native-pepper crocodile and prawns. It sounds good and it is good. The Australian game platter is $48 per person, while a slice of amazing wattleseed pavlova or quandong pie with macadamia crumble costs $14. Not sure if it’s Australian, but chocolate slut is also on the menu.
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Waterview Bistro
Sunset drinks are a must at this swish restaurant with sensational views of Fraser Island from its hilltop perch.
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Pier
The Pier’s fires burn brightly on the wooden deck that surrounds this waterfront bar-restaurant. The ice machine mesmerises as it moves ice along a perspex pipe above the bar, but if you can focus your eyes on the menu you’ll find a smattering of snacks, finger foods, pizza and fish. There’s a band every Sunday night from 8pm.
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Aromas
This European-style cafe is unashamedly ostentatious, with chandeliers, faux-marble tables and cane chairs deliberately facing the street so patrons can ogle the passing foot traffic. There's the usual array of panini, cakes and light meals, but most folk come for the coffee and the atmosphere.
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Nautilus
A hidden pathway leads through tropical gardens to intimate white-clothed tables amid tall palms at this decades-old fine-dining institution. Seafood is a speciality, such as wok-tossed mud crab with kaffir lime and lemongrass laksa. The pièce de résistance is the six-course chef's tasting menu ($110; $160 with paired wines). Children under eight aren't accepted.
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Verve Café
This cavernous bar-cafe-restaurant where the cool kids hang has work by local artists for sale on the exposed brick walls. Food is modern Italian – blue-cheese risotto, and goats-cheese gnocchi are the big sellers. There’s acoustic music on Thursday nights and DJs on Friday nights.
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Customs House Brasserie
Few restaurants in Brisbane have open-air settings quite like the majestic Customs House, overlooking the Brisbane River and Story Bridge. The Queensland prawn and crab tian with roasted tomato and avocado, and the seared scallops are divine options. Go on, splash out.
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Ben's Vietnamese & Chinese Restaurant
There's a reason people flock to this Asian diner at weekends and it's not just for the food. Up to 300 people come here on Friday and Saturday nights drawn by a shared love of spring rolls and karaoke. Everyone - and we mean everyone - gets up to sing.
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Shrubbery Taverna
Shaded by bamboo gardens, this local hang-out is great for seafood tapas, salt and pepper prawns and creamy seafood chowder. Live music on Friday night and Sunday afternoon.
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Cafe Balaena
This efficient and friendly cafe in the heart of the Hervey Bay Marina serves gourmet croissants and outstanding fruit juices. At lunch and dinner the menu is equally trendy, boasting mountainous hot sandwiches and salads, with a good dose of fresh seafood.
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Vespa Pizza
No chance of a boring selection like the big pizza chains here: Vespa’s wood-fired varieties are certainly unique. Big sellers include the streaky bacon and red currant with camembert, and the cinnamon roast butternut pumpkin with dried chilli and feta.
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Continental Café
The ‘Continental classics’ menu is the popular pick at this busy European-themed cafe, including a delicious soy-lime chicken breast with coconut risotto and steamed bok choy. Tasty veg options include spinach lasagne with grilled spring vegetables.
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