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...

If you visit Quan 55 in search of a traditional Vietnamese restaurant, you might just be disappointed. Quan 55 is all that and more. Wynn Huynh, who owns Quan 55 with her husband Thanh Tram, is the first to tell us that she has never felt confined by expectations. So, you should expect the unexpected!...

The glamour of Cuba in the 1950s is legendary. In the favoured holiday destination of movie stars and celebrities, at chic bars and stylish restaurants, tables were laden with food and mojitos flowed. Socialites partied on in a haze of cigar smoke, their drivers waiting outside in Studebakers lined along the street. But trouble was...

There’s something special about heritage places, especially when they’ve been reborn. It’s as though those who’ve gone before have trod the floorboards, breathed the air and imbued into the building a sense of place. There’s all that and more at The Island. The original five-level tower, built in 1964 by Greg Graham and Bill Reichelt,...

For over thirty years, Yamagen has been a major contender in Japanese dining on the Gold Coast. Established for the opening of Daikyo’s Gold Coast International in 1987, the restaurant was a celebration of the Gold Coast’s flourishing relationship with Japan. An integral part of the city’s first five-star hotel, Gold Coast International heralded a...

Steampunk brings something different to Surfers Paradise: a retro industrial world that exists only in the imagination. Opened in April 2017, the venue brings us the age of machines, of retro-futuristic inventions, robotics and air travel, recreating a world of science fiction inspired by the steam-powered industrial period of Victorian England. Modelled on the Romanian...

As we reach the shortest day of the year, winter chills creep in as the sun sinks behind the hills. We linger in tracky dacks, loathe to venture out, content to reach for comfort food in the shelter of warm homes. The winter solstice or ‘Yuletide’ marks a turning point from which days get longer,...

If there’s a position worth coveting, it’s that of Glass. You could embark from your luxury yacht anchored on the sparkling Broadwater just beyond the windows, or fly by helicopter to the helipad at the end of the jetty… so it seems as we dine at Glass Restaurant, overlooking the Gold Coast at play. In...

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...

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....