Queen’s Wharf. If you think of this blockbuster precinct’s grand reveal as the defining food story of 2024, you’re probably right. But it’s also been one of the defining food stories of the past eight years and, as we head into 2025, more than ever it’s come to reflect the Brisbane hospitality scene’s strengths, its weaknesses – and its ongoing, never-ending anxieties.
About the time I started covering food full-time in this city in 2016, the going logic among restaurateurs and bar owners was that you had to get out of the CBD because Queen’s Wharf was coming. Then, in the ensuing years, Brisbane became much more of a tourist destination and the script flipped entirely: you now had to get into the CBD because Queen’s Wharf was coming, and bringing with it 1.4 million additional visitors (Star Entertainment Group’s own figure) a year.
How much the $3.6 billion precinct will add to the local economy is perhaps up in the air after a bunch of setbacks, including the loss of anchor retail tenant DFS, and Star needing to secure a $200 million debt facility in September. Behind the rift between the Queen’s Wharf developer and the retail giant Either way, Queen’s Wharf is open, as are a pile of new restaurants.
Sokyo Brisbane, Black Hide, Aloria, Azteca, Luc Lac, Cucina Regina, Dark Shepherd and Pompette among them. They arrived one after the other in a flurry of hits from August onwards. Boom! Boom! Boom! Yet, the discussion they created in the wider industry.
