Some of the city’s best restaurants – including Southside, Gerard’s and newcomer Central – will take over Brisbane Powerhouse’s forecourt and surrounding lawns.
Night Feast is returning to Brisbane for 2024.
Starting on Wednesday night, 20 top eateries will take over Brisbane Powerhouse’s forecourt and surrounding lawns to dish up everything from Hong Kong-style dumplings and stir fry to fragrant Middle Eastern breads and shish kebab, and smokey Filipino barbecue.
The longer-term nature of the event (it runs until November 10) means high-profile operators that wouldn’t otherwise consider setting up a stall tend to get involved, including a clutch of southern interlopers.
Running alongside the food line-up is a program of free art and music, as well as the MELT 2024 festival, which kicks off October 23.
Here are some of the essential food stalls to check out at this year’s event.
Byblos
One Brisbane’s most iconic Middle Eastern restaurants, Byblos will relaunch at Portside Wharf towards the end of the month – but you can get a preview of its revised menu at this year’s Night Feast.
Ghanem Group executive chef Jake Nicolson’s menu includes rakakat (feta and mozzarella in filo pastry), lamb kibbeh with rose petal, pine nuts and spices, a Lebanese wrap (Lebanese bread, hummus and tabbouleh with your choice of protein) and a fattoush salad.
Ghanem Group has a heavy presence at this year’s Night Feast, with Donna Chang and Boom Boom Room (in a collaboration with Sapporo) also in attendance.
Hoy Pinoy
Follow the smoke and the aroma of sizzling wagyu, pork and chicken skewers cooked over charcoal to discover Melbourne’s Hoy Pinoy, James and Regina Meehan’s Filipino food stall by now a popular regular addition at festivals around the country.
This year, Hoy Pinoy’s signature dish is lechon – whole roasted pork with a coconut adobo glaze and served on rice – but it’s also dishing up its essential skewers: inihaw na baboy (pork belly skewers in banana ketchup glaze ), inihaw na baka (eight-score wagyu beef skewers with a bistek tagalog glaze), inihaw na manok (chicken skewers in a traditional soy glaze), and steamed rice.
The Meehans’ son, Joshua Meehan, will also be there with his La Mano stall, serving a take on Mexican street food that includes pork sausage tacos, pulled beef birria tacos, and smoked chicken nachos.
Diviners x Savile Row
It’s not all food at Night Feast, with celebrated Valley cocktail bar Savile Row collaborating with Granite Belt distillery Diviners for a short menu of eats and drinks.
You can order Tasmanian oysters served with a Diviners Apparition gin mignonette, cucumber and shallots, paired with a Diviners gin and tonic; Diviners Outlier gin-compressed rockmelon and prosciutto served with strawberry gum salt; brillat savarin cheese with lavosh and fig paste; or go straight to the booze with a rhubarb spritz made with white grape and Outlier gin.
Gerard’s
This local icon will be rolling down James Street to serve an abridged take on chef Jimmy Richardson’s progressive Middle Eastern cuisine.
On the menu is manoushe flatbread topped with either lamb, red pepper and toum, or eggplant kasundi and garlic yoghurt; shish taouk (traditional marinated chicken shish kebab); sumac spiced fries; and a knafeh doughnut for dessert.
Central
Struggling to get a booking at one of Brisbane’s best new restaurants? Because the Hong Kong-inspired Central is also popping up at Night Feast, alongside sister venue Southside.
Central’s signature dish for Night Feast is a wagyu and kampot pepper stir fry with crispy confit potato and manuka honey, served with jasmine rice. Elsewhere on the menu, there’s classic pork and prawn siu mai with a sweet soy glaze, kimchi prawn and bamboo har gao with gochujang, barbecue pork steam buns, and crispy eggplant chips with a typhoon shelter dressing and sweet and sour sauce.
Allonda
Sebastiaan de Kort, Kevin Docherty and Yanika Sittisuntorn’s Allonda has become a popular hangout with Newstead, Teneriffe and New Farm locals since opening in 2022, so is a natural fit for Night Feast.
On its Euro-inspired menu you’ll find salt and pepper pork belly, Allonda four-cheese croquettes, a stracciatella, strawberry and tomato salad with black pepper, olive oil and charred bread, and the restaurant’s take on a tiramisu.
For drinks, the pop-up is serving a yuzu and peach summer spritz.
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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.
