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Rodd & Gunn was opening a restaurant.
Wait, that Rodd & Gunn? The New Zealand menswear label? And not just any restaurant but a James Street restaurant. What folly was this?
The Lodge Bar & Dining – which, yes, would be joined to a Rodd & Gunn retail store – made sense in a tourist destination like Queenstown, where it originated. But here in Brisbane, surely it would stand exposed among the Essas, the Hellenikas, the Biancas and the SK Steak & Oysters, its thermal long johns around its ankles.
The Lodge’s fitout is relatively low-key, particularly when compared to its glamorous James Street neighbours. Markus Ravik
That was more or less the general reaction back in 2022 when Rodd & Gunn announced The Lodge would move into the heritage-listed Lawless Grocery Store building on the corner of James and Robertson streets.
But then you noticed Matt Lambert’s name attached as group executive chef. Lambert earned his New York restaurant, The Musket Room, a Michelin star in 2014. And then you saw Cameron Douglas, New Zealand’s only master sommelier, had curated the wine list. Suddenly, this was a restaurant to take seriously.
I first ate at The Lodge on an industry preview night, and I remember it being fine. The price point seemed a bit off and a couple of dishes overly mannered, but on that occasion, the restaurant was still ironing out its kinks pre-opening. I ate there three times subsequently and every time, it got a little tighter, a little more refined.
And you underestimate Lambert at your peril. The guy is a weapon. He’ll self-deprecate and say he overthinks things. But in a restaurant, that equates to a laser-focused eye for detail for both back and front of house. Hence that star, I guess.
The snacks are arguably the star of the show at The Lodge Bar & Dining. Markus Ravik
It was a local restaurant owner who messaged me about a month ago singing The Lodge’s praises, saying it was one of the best meals he’d eaten in the city in a long while, and that I needed to head back.
So, I did.
It’s one of those weird pre-Alfred nights when I visit with a dining partner; the weather is all over the shop, meaning the restaurant is relatively quiet.
“Fish and chips” (beer batter chip, cured coral trout, tartare sauce and herbs). Markus Ravik
On first impression, The Lodge’s design isn’t necessarily anything you’ll want to bang on to your mates about. With its flagstone walls and American oak floors and ceilings, it’s comfy and refined rather than glamorous. But the layout – split across multiple rooms and perhaps dictated to the designers by its heritage-listed digs – suits a night like this. We’re one of the few tables in the place, but we never feel like the final customers in an empty, echoey dining hall.
You imagine a venue like The Lodge, with all its nooks and crannies and kitchen tucked away on the ground floor, is a pain to oversee, but the service on our night doesn’t miss a beat. It’s knowledgeable but friendly and matter of fact: questions are answered with ease, empty plates and glasses swiftly addressed.
Trout row tart snack with egg yolk, yoghurt and chives. Markus Ravik
The Lodge was one of the earlier Brisbane restaurants to go hard on snacks. Chefs tend to love snack menus because it’s an opportunity to let their creativity run wild over a bunch of smaller dishes. For diners, it’s a chance to try something they otherwise might not have, but these bite-sized plates still need to deliver perceived value.
We start with three.
Miso-glazed Ora King salmon skewers are delicious enough, but they’re eclipsed by a “Fish and Chips” – battered chip, cured coral trout, tartare sauce and dill – and a trout roe tart with egg yolk, yoghurt and chives.
Grimaud duck sausage with ember-grilled fig and smoked ricotta. Markus Ravik
The former has an occasionally homesick Kiwi like me swooning with memories of newspaper-wrapped tarakihi and chips on the beach (so, admittedly, Aussie mileage may vary). The latter is a lesson in how texture dictates so much of our enjoyment in food, the pop of the roe giving way to the velvety mouthfeel of the yolk and yoghurt, and then the crunch of a squid-ink pasta-biscuit base. It’s been on The Lodge menu (in its more expensive caviar form) since launch, and dear lord, long may it remain.
A Grimaud duck sausage entree served with ember-grilled fig and smoked ricotta is perhaps the star of the night. A brush of smoked duck fat to finish echoes Lambert’s time at The Musket Room and leaves the meat with a lovely, unctuous flavour that’s offset by the juiciness of the fig. Lambert reckons he conceived this dish on the fly but, either way, it’s brilliantly done.
Line-caught Chris Bolton barramundi with summer corn, clam beurre blanc and basil. Markus Ravik
For mains we order a market fish of panfried wild barramundi sourced from in-demand North Queensland fisher Chris Bolton. With so much farmed stuff now on the market, getting reacquainted with barra caught on the line is a minor revelation, the fish firm but supple, with a lovely mild taste and none of the “muddiness” of its captive cousin. This is what chefs mean when talking about sustainable, produce-driven dishes, even if a liberal dash of summer corn slightly overpowers the accompanying clam beurre blanc.
A pressé of New Zealand lamb shoulder is our second main. Lambert has eschewed a traditional pressé and instead tightly rolled the meat and finished it on the pan, creating a dish that, when served with gently cooked onions, fried sweetbreads, alliums and rosemary, captures the spirit of a classic Kiwi roast without drifting into pastiche.
Pressé of lamb shoulder with sweetbreads, rosemary, alliums and jus. Markus Ravik
The wines we choose throughout add up to a fine showcase of how far New Zealand winemaking has come over the past few decades. We try a bunch over the early plates and the pick is a Soho Carter chardonnay from Waiheke Island – slightly spicy and with a fabulous textural slate in the delivery, it’s a proper banger. Later, I go Old World organic with a chilled Marcel Joubert Beaujolais Villages gamay that’s juicy and fresh and laced with dashes of black cherry – a great wine at a great price point.
We finish with a pair of desserts.
A passionfruit pavlova that’s encased in its own meringue will make you wonder why this wasn’t the way it was always served. A deconstructed carrot cake sundae, on the other hand, is the only clear miss of the night, with its ice-cream centre frozen into a rock-hard puck, perhaps the result of too much nitrogen, Lambert tells me later.
Passionfruit pavlova with curd, sweetened cream and fresh passionfruit. Markus Ravik
Still, the reason it sticks out is because everything else on the plate has been so exactingly accomplished.
Talk to industry folk about The Lodge and they’ll chew your ear off about those snacks, and there’s an argument here that they’re so good, they almost outshine the rest of the meal. Then again, perhaps it’s just a case of a meal’s diminishing marginal returns (a concept semi-popularised in food circles by University of Nevada economics professor Eric Chiang, whose thoughts on how to tackle a Vegas buffet are well worth checking out ).
But The Lodge is flexible enough to approach on your own terms, and unfussy enough that you’ll want to come back before long. Perhaps it flies under the radar a little when compared to its James Street neighbours but, make no mistake, this considered, precise eatery deserves your attention.
The low-down
Vibe: Low-key Kiwi-influenced dining in a James Street heritage landmark.
Go-to dish: Grimaud duck sausage with ember-grilled fig and smoked ricotta.
Drinks: A cracking selection of New Zealand wines, along with old world drops and signature and classic cocktails that lean on Kiwi spirits.
Cost: About $200 for two, plus drinks.
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Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
