American food has long been a favourite of Gold Coast diners. Talk burgers, fries and wings and you’ll get our attention. Sometimes we’ll even join a queue to taste a new brand. Opened in Manhattan, New York in 1965 by Alan Stillman, TGI Fridays was first marketed as a bar where single women could relax...

Suited perfectly to the Burleigh dining scene, Light Years opened to much fanfare late in 2019, owners Kim Stephen and Stephen Filipovic extending their holdings of sister restaurants in Byron Bay and Noosa. Named after ‘the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one Julian year’, it’s ‘light years’ away from the food beachgoers...

You know when you’ve reached a place of the heart. There’s an intimacy that reminds you of velvet – soft to the touch, the coolness of loss felt as we move away. It’s this mixture of emotions I feel looking back on a night’s dining experience at Rabbath. Owned by Patrick and Pascal Rabbath, and...

What do you do when your favourite bar is about to close? You buy it! That’s exactly what Dave Rane and Gavin White, new owners of the Backbone Bar did. With both men working in the construction industry, they took the opportunity to keep the bar alive by purchasing it from former owners Chris Wormald...

UPDATE 2019: How far this cafe has come since it opened! The menu of raw cakes is now only one part of a complete plant-based a la carte menu. My generous serve of Corn fritters is served on a bed of spinach, layered with tomato relish and a tasty avocado salsa finished with balsamic glaze...

If there was a dining ‘Hall of Fame’, then Jo-Anne and Greg Short would be among the first to be inducted. It’s twenty years since the couple opened the Broadwalk Café, the forerunner of today’s iconic Sandbar. Migrating from NSW with their young family, the couple were excited to start their own new venture in...

Osteria del Mare reminds me that in so many ways the Gold Coast is fortunate. Not only are our climate and mountain-fringed seascape a joy in themselves, but the coast’s magnetism draws world travellers like flotsam to our shores for us to enjoy. One such couple is Andrea and Simona Riva, owners of the newly-opened...

If there’s an unsung hero of the northern dining scene, it’s the Black Sheep Bistro. Located not far from the Oxenford turnoff, the Black Sheep is a local favourite, especially for its weekend breakfasts and lunches. To Australians, ‘black sheep’ carries the connotation of a stray, or disreputable family member. However, my New Zealand childhood...

We love pretty spaces and pretty food but, even more, food needs to taste great and be good for us. It’s the fuel we choose, after all. Sometimes these factors don’t all come together. Sometimes Instagram leads to unrealistic expectations and, in the ‘flesh’, the food experience disappoints. Opened by the very creative Morgan Walsh...

With the village-like hub of Chirn Park a rising star in Gold Coast dining, Tonic on Chirn is a tried and true local hero, an establishment where we can recommend food, drink, ambience and service as being equally important and on point. Walk into Tonic on Chirn, and you could be mistaken for thinking that...