Brisbane Spring [On The Road: Brisbane]

One great place I discovered in Brisbane was Spring. One chef hat from Australian Good Food Guide. The place is a combination of restaurant bistro style, cooking school, and their main attraction is the Chef’s table. Bright, clear, light, and white space. Using local produce to create simple but hearty seasonal dishes. By the time of my visit the cuisine was in control of head chef Ben Veldhuijzen and Executive Chef Kym Machin. 

Spring

The place

Chef Machin who was recently awarded as Queensland chef of the year by the Good Food Guide in 2012 recently left Spring. Probably in the near future we will be seeing a Machin restaurant. 

Sculpture outside the place

Menu is based on European cuisine, a bit more formal for dinner and some quick bites for lunch. I went several times the highlights of my visits were definitely hand made gnocchi with tomato, boconccini, and basil. Hands down a great dish, lovely gratin, great textures, with a sweet touch. 

Gnocchi gratin

Zucchini flowers, grilled calamari, chive, and onions risotto. Excellent, great flavour, creamy, the grilled calamari and zucchini flowers nice combination, definitely a memorable dish. 

Risotto

The Chef table was a great experience. Head chef Ben preparing and explaining every dish in a private kitchen adapted to have all the diners around.

Chef table menu

Chef Ben in action

We started with scallop’s vichyssoise. Raw scallops with leek, black potato tinted with squid ink and charcoaled. The leek purée was great smoky flavours, a fishy punch from the squid ink that played awesome with the subtle raw scallop. 

Scallops

Preparing the scallops

Second dish, tomato and boccnccini. This boconccini style cheese is hand made in Maleny, similar to a mozzarella, but it has different layers. The tomato was previously flattened and marinated with garlic and basil, letting it resting for hours. 

Preparing the marinated tomato and boconccini

Third dish a green curry Murray cod. Fish covered in green curry paste. The paste is made from spinach, basil and garlic (chlorophyll, spinach paint), some edemame, radish, and carrots. Nice dish good flavor of the cod and great push from the curry paste. 

Cod time

Cod green curry

Fourth dish a chicken wings with corn. The chicken wings were smoked and deboned, cooked only on one side having a crispy side and then the tenderness of the chicken on the other. The corn purée with lettuce was nice. Great flavours the smokey crispy wings with the sweetness of the corn 

Wings

Finally pineapple all style or six ways. We had pineapple powder, pineapple gel, pineapple creme anglaise, pineapple liquid nitrogen, and pineapple sorbet. Nice way to end our experience.

Pineapple six ways

Great restaurant the question now is will Spring still retain its quality after chef Machin. Now the place is under the command of chef Emlyn Thorrington. 

Some spices

Pineapple reminds me the Seinfeld episode “The Baby Shower” 

Kramer: Yeah, I eat the whole apple. The core, stem, seeds, everything

Elaine: Kramer, Kramer, look at him. Look! He's eating all the food!

Kramer: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, there are many differences between American and Soviet cultures that you're not aware of. See, in Russian, the cable guy, they got the whole run of the house. Yeah, that's tradition. Did you ever eat the bark of a pineapple?

Spring
T: +65 7 3229 0460
European Cuisine
Approx Damage: AU$60pp
Area: CBD
Brisbane
Twitter: springbrisbane

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