How do you create a restaurant that lasts? In a Brisbane food scene often preoccupied with the shiny and the new, it’s this question that preoccupies David Flynn. Flynn and business partners Frank Li, Andrew Hohns and Nick Woodward have a history of taking their time, from their blockbuster Rick Shores in Burleigh Heads to (the now closed) Little Valley in Fortitude Valley and then the heaving Southside in Fish Lane. Flynn is talking in the private dining room of the 80-seat Central, the group’s latest restaurant, which he’s piloting with new partners Benny Lam and Maui Manu (who diners might recognise as executive chef and restaurant manager of Southside respectively).
The Star has a new contender for Brisbane’s best Japanese restaurant Central is located right in the guts of the city, beneath 340 Queen Street – once home to the historic Piccadilly Arcade and Primitif Cafe, a favoured ’50s hangout for Brisbane beatniks. From the moment you walk down the stairs and through its curtained entrance, you see the thought that’s gone into the place: the salt-and-pepper granite bench tops, the illuminated panelled ceiling, the tiered layout with counter seats looking directly down – stadium like – into the kitchen. Designed by in-demand architect and designer Jared Webb of J.
AR OFFICE, there’s absolutely nothing else like it in Brisbane. “We’re creating venues that will last for hopefully 10 years, 15 years, maybe longer,” Flynn says. “To do that, you als.
