Many storms are followed by a rainbow. When we gather on a bright winter’s day in June for a long table lunch beside the lake at Mavis’s Kitchen, we are thinking celebration. But the sobering trip along the Tweed reminds us of the devastation caused by the flood just two months before. Grass, beaten into...

Every so often something radically different comes along in the dining scene – an idea that, while generated from elsewhere, is given new life in our present-day culinary context. The Collective at Palm Beach is just that. A restaurant version of a food market, The Collective is a family business blending the complementary skills of...

It’s a magical night under a full moon in an Italian vineyard lit by fairy lights and candles; a sumptuous Italian feast accompanied by prosecco spritzers, our entertainment a string quartet, ballet and opera. This is the Gold Coast at its best – a balmy evening, a fairly casual event celebrating talent we rarely see....

“Eat better, Drink happy.” Opened in 2005, Nonna’s is a good example of a family restaurant that gives the people what they want. Always popular, the recent renovation will make it even more so. As they’d done with House of Brews, the Kanaghines brothers embarked on a ‘discovery’ trip to the US to uncover food...

It’s hard to miss Balboa as you drive through Palm Beach. Its red brick two-storey building, once a quite unremarkable office block, now forms an imposing picture; even more so at night when the interior emanates a warm glow and the tables spill over with food, drinks and good times. The latest venture of Avvia...

There’s something special about De Vito’s Waterfront that warms your heart. It’s not just the warm welcome, the comfort of the venue, or the well-executed Italian cuisine, it’s like a well-loved song – familiar, emotive and endearing. De Vito’s Waterfront sits on the southern edge of Southport looking across the Nerang River to Surfers Paradise....

Sometimes a really solid little restaurant can be hiding in full view, waiting to be discovered by locals. Perhaps you, like us, have walked past the olive trees too many times. All along, Baritalia has been sitting in the corner beckoning us with hooded eyes and somehow we’ve missed the overtures. Located on a triangular...

It’s winter, which means it’s the month for truffles, and we’re heading to Cucina Vivo in The Star Gold Coast to enjoy a ‘truffle feast’. It’s been a slow love affair for me. To be perfectly honest, you’d never pick a truffle for a first date! A large, darkish blob covered in wart-like nodules hiding...

The Carney brothers, owners of Gemelli, waited some time before opening their second venue, Gemellini. But the wait was well worth it! Nobby’s ‘Little Twin’, as the name means, is a more relaxed and intimate venue than its older more worldly-wise Broadbeach sibling. Feeling fashionably well-established, the venue yawns back lazily from the street, a...

Gelato. I’m sitting looking into the tubs. This is one of those foods, I’m thinking, where the visual representation has very little to do with the taste. In front of me is an ordinary looking mass of light brown gelato; a bit non-descript, really. Unenticing. Except that I’ve just tasted it. Which changes everything. Gelato...