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Local's guide: Brisbane's South Bank

Brisbane South Bank
Brisbane South Bank

Imagine if you could combine the small bar scene and hip restaurants of Newtown or Brunswick, with the frangipani-scented nights of Brisbane. Okay, now close your eyes and click your thongs together thrice, and say out loud: “South Bank”.

Brisbane’s South Bank was originally a meeting place for the Turrbal and Yuggera people, eventually becoming the locus of European settlement. By the mid-nineteenth century, South Bank was Brisbane's CBD.

However, the 1893 floods forced the business district to leapfrog to higher ground on the northern side of the river, where it remains today. South Bank declined, eventually becoming home to seedy vaudeville theatres, derelict boarding houses, and smelly industry. Enter Expo 88 and South Bank is reimagined. 

Today, what’s unique about South Bank is that all Brizzie’s hipness is located in the one riparian precinct. Roiled by recent floods, South Bank’s wringing itself out and welcoming back visitors with a sunny smile and a hip cultural scene that defies southern stereotypes.

Highlights
  • Gallery of Modern Art
  • Queensland Museum
  • Fish Lane
  • Southside
  • Popolo

View the South Bank map

Where to eat

If it’s hatted dining you’re after, trace the path along the Brown Snake (as locals call the Brisbane River) to arrive at the culinary palindrome that is Otto. This restaurant has the wow-factor, with egg table-lights and swirling, hula-skirt chandeliers. Its romantic setting defies superlatives as lights from the Brisbane CBD shimmy on the skin of the mud-scented river. But you pay for it. $55 main for five pasta pockets. So it’s for a special night out for most. And consider wearing a pocket hanky.

Or school your way to groovy Fish Lane – a slice of inner-city Melbourne at South Bank. Set in a Jurassic arboretum of giant tree ferns, you’ll enjoy chic Asian-infused cuisine, all presented in steaming bamboo pots while a funky jungle soundtrack drowns out the squealing brakes of city trains overhead, but this adds to its edgy inner-city hipness. Best value is the set-menu $79 + $35 for the matching wine-package. 

Or follow South Bank’s grand arbour – a tunnel of curling Bougainvillea – and follow the aroma of deliciousness to Popolo. Perhaps the Goldilocks of South Bank nosh-spots, Popolo’s generous servings and stunning quayside setting is totally without pretension. Try their degustation package with matching wines. Indeed, Hemingway once wrote, ‘nothing tastes of the sea like an oyster’. But Ernie never tasted Popolo’s Seafood Linguine. It’s bonkers. Popolo’s wines are perfectly matched with your dishes, and you’ll struggle to finish the courses. As you contemplate a prawn the size of an old-school telephone receiver, you’ll watch the ferries glide past and smile. Banquet $110pp. Wine match $55pp.

Looking for something informal?  Grab a ‘vurger’ at Grass Fed - a funky hole-in-the-wall-diner offering hearty vegan burgers using locally sourced ingredients. Or, enclosed in a palisade of lofty tiger-grass, consider breakfast at Billykart. And try their Turkish Eggs with braised kale, yoghurt and lemon ($24) all served with toe-curling coffee.

Or grab something on the fly at Lune. The New York Times declared this croissanterie’s crescent parcels as “perhaps the finest in the world.”  (Well, are they or not?) You decide. Hey, you’ll stand in-line for 15mins like ‘lunatics’ but Lune lives up to its international rep as their light-as-a-moon-walk croissant gently flakes in your hipster beard.

For that dash of the Sydney small bar scene, Fish Lane offers Kiki, Bar Brutus or Butler Wine Bar. Or for something original try Saccharomyces Beer Café, bunkered under a block of red-bricked 1960s flats. Here you’ll enjoy craft beers pulled from taps the size of broom handles, with a side-order of Screamo soundtrack and retro bar-snacks like pickled eggs! Psst! Saccharomyces is not a Greek philosopher but the yeast used in brewing.

What to see

Where to start?! First, South Bank houses Brisbane’s impressive performing arts centre, museums, and galleries, all within spitting distance from each other. At GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art) see The Soul Trembles, showcasing twenty-five years of Chiharu Shiota’s arts practice. Move swiftly past photos of the artist, naked and rolling around in the mud in an attempt to “connect with Mother Earth” (want Mother Earth? Come to my house and do some weeding) to follow the rabbit warren of her Biennale style installations.

Chiharu Shiota's artworks are breathtaking in their imagination and, moreover, their execution. Look for the suspended suitcases: the artist’s homage to The Ruby Princess (okay, I made that up). And as a writer I was particularly moved by the writing desk, with its explosion of paper flowering above it: the writer’s imagination made manifest. Then emerge in a womb of floor-to-ceiling strands of red wool. You might think to yourself, “what a waste! Gran could have knitted a thousand cardies with all this wool.” But that would be gauche and unsophisticated. Anyway, don’t miss it!

Then stroll over to the Queensland Museum to uncover the magic behind 100 years of Walt Disney in Disney: The Magic of Animation. You underestimate the impact that our cryogenically-chilled chum, Walt Disney, has had on generations of kids. Whether it’s Jungle Book or 101 Dalmatians, Beauty and the Beast or Frozen (apt in Walt’s case) it’s a part of your childhood. Unpacking the processes of animation pre-computers is also fascinating. And if you have kids, there’s excellent hip-high signage for them in which to engage.

As aforementioned Expo was the chrysalis for South Bank’s reimagining. Shrouded in tall bamboo, the Nepalese Pagoda is a fave with locals and the three-story high Pagoda took more than 160 Nepalese families to construct. It was originally schlepped to Brizzie as the Kingdom of Nepal’s contribution to Expo. Don’t miss it!

South Bank’s Sunday Social is where locals chill and wind-down on a lazy Sundee arvo with live music and killer cuisine from the aforementioned river-quay restaurants. Psst! Many of the these restaurants like Otto and Popolo do a fabo picnic hamper for the green. 2pm-5pm.

Where to play

The famous City Hopper is a free ferry service that chugs along this pretty river, stopping at picturesque jetties at South Bank. There are seven stops between North Quay and New Farm and the service runs every 30minutes between 5.30am and midnight. While most stops are operating, some jetties were smashed by the floods, so the captain’s tip is they won’t be operating till year’s end.

Streets Beach is an amazing unique bespoke sparkling blue lagoon surrounded by white, sandy beaches and sub-tropical plants, all set within South Bank. Frolic on Australia’s only inner-city beach on a warm Brizzie day. Again, gut-punched by floods, they reckon it reopens early September.

The London Eye has a rival! An iconic landmark on the South Bank skyline, the Wheel of Brisbane is a great way to take in a 360-degree panoramic view of this very pretty city. The gondolas are air-conditioned and they include audio tours of the city. No reservations are needed as there's loooads of seats and it's reasonably priced at under twenty bucks a ticket.

 

Hey, there is a brilliant Maritime Museum at the far end of South Bank with an original WW2 frigate you can explore, me hearties. This pocket museum punches above its weight in lifeboats. 

'Epicurean' means someone who enjoys food and drink. You’ll might call em “foodies". At Epicurious Garden, visitors learn to cook with home-grown produce such as kale, fennel and turmeric, as well as a variety of fruits, herbs and edible flowers. Maintained by a team of dedicated staff, it’s a fascinating afternoon for anyone who enjoys cooking.

Finally, everywhere (and we mean everywhere) you go on South Bank e-scooters silently whiz past you. You’ll see scooters and helmets abandoned on pavements all along South Bank as if a neutron bomb was detonated. They are easy to hire with a credit card and are great fun! 

Where to stay

There’s accommodation at South Bank to suit all budgets. And by “budget” we don’t mean a mattress on the floor in a windowless room above a street where cats fight all night. 

An option striking the balance been comfort and affordability is Adina Apartment Hotel Brisbane. Opened in 1922 as the Queensland Government Savings Bank, the lavish columns, ornate ceilings and marble finishes imbues your stay with a feeling of opulence. Open your balcony to absorb the Brisbane River views to glorious South Bank. All Adinas exclusively offer guests Simba pillows - surely made with the eyelashes of angels – and the rooms are spacious and contemporary. The apartments come equipped with in-room laundry and kitchenette so you can cook in your room one night to save some coin. All within a lazy stroll across the bridge to South Bank. $350p.n.

The impressive Emporium Hotel South Bank features 143 luxuriously appointed suites with all the comforts you could ask for, including quick access to South Bank’s aforementioned premier dining destination, River Quay. $449p.n

You don’t need to be a practising Buddhist to stay at the Mantra. Stylish Mantra South Bank offers a variety of rooms, studios, and self-contained one and two-bedroom apartments. $229p.n

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