Opening mid-2025

Housed in a converted bomb shelter, this vine-covered hole in the wall is known for dishing out some of the best coffee to be found in the café heartland of Milton. Drop by and relax in the sun with one of Bunker's iced specialties or batch brews. There are plenty of take-home options, including a full range of beans and home brewing products, as well as the rather special casks of Colombian cold brew – another go-to for Brisbane’s sweltering summers. Add in a fully stocked cake and pastry selection from Cosmos Cakes and Chouquette, and you are well and truly looked after at Bunker.

Skate / metal themed espresso bar open 24/7

Brissy locals are no strangers to Jocelyn’s Provisions. For almost three decades, the bread heads at this bakery institution have been serving up exactly what the people want – pork and apple sausage rolls, beef and red wine pies, gooey caramel slices and giant ANZAC biscuits. Across their four stores in Albion, Brisbane City, Camp Hill and Fortitude Valley, you’ll also find playful twists on the classic croissant, featuring fillings like char siu pork, spicy dan dan and peking duck. Jocelyn’s is perhaps most famous for its lamingtons, with their fairy bread edition making a special appearance every July for National Lamington Day.

Humans have two hands for a reason – one to hold a steaming coffee and the other to hold a freshly baked bread. Head to this bright and sunny suburban bakery in Fortitude Valley for some of Brisbane’s best pastries and sourdough. Just like their renowned parent restaurant, Agnes, the bakers here harness the power of fire to add complexity of flavours into both their sweet treats and savoury loaves. While you may come for a loaf of their famous smoked potato sourdough from Agnes, you’ll likely end up leaving with a couple of croissants, sausage rolls, scrolls and a slice of their heavenly Basque cheesecake.

Andrew McConnell and on the water

You may wonder why a wine bar included on our best new openings list is called Milquetoast (another word for feeble, insipid, or bland). Despite its name, owners George Curtis and James Horsfall’s new opening is anything but weak. Milquetoast is stuffed inside a former CBD car garage down a laneway off Elizabeth Street, past the bright neon lights of late-night bourbon bar Alice. It’s got an industrial fit-out offset by homey mismatched vintage furniture, warm wooden surfaces and wine bottles lining the walls. An open kitchen and bar on one side of the space lets punters in on the action. The British-leaning menu is inspired by the owners’ shared English heritage, with opening highlights including devilled eggs, mushrooms on toast and Cumberland sausages with puy lentils and gremolata.

Walking down Queen Street towards Eagle Street, you’ll notice an illuminated glass box filled with dry-aging ducks. It’s a sight more common in Chinatown or the streets of Hong Kong than in the Brisbane CBD but, at Central, it sets the tone for what’s to come. Descend a moody concrete staircase, and you’ll find yourself in a hidden cave-like space surrounded by 150-year-old rock walls. The basement restaurant is the newest venue from the Rick Shores and Southside team. Native Hong Konger Benny Lam is executive chef. He’s serving surprising takes on Hong Kong classics, like pineapple buns filled with crispy prosciutto and smoked butter, and fried dough served with smoked foie gras and Davidson’s plum jus. Other dishes include Wagyu beef tartare in a fermented soybean sauce and drunken chicken. There’s dim sum, of course, and larger dishes include wok-fried lobster noodles, triple-cooked Wagyu short rib, and roast duck with lilly pilly plum sauce.

Aussie pub opening in 2025

Lighthouse, a Mediterranean restaurant in Williamsburg, looks to Japan for its new sibling Messy in Manhattan: ingredients like miso, wasabi, furikake, and togarashi find their way to kebabs, sandwiches, mezze, and more.

From Esquire’s 2024 Best Restaurants: Oun Lido’s is a joint venture from Bounahcree “Bones” Kim, a thirty-four-year-old Cambodian American, and Vien Dobui, who runs Công Tử Bột, Portland’s best Vietnamese restaurant. Using Maine’s rightfully lauded ingredients, cooking in a space that’s still in the process of being built out, and tapping into hazy, precious memories of childhood, Bones turns out plates that brilliantly synthesize Cambodian and Cantonese flavors. Baptized in pungent homemade prahok, a Cambodian fish sauce, his beef salad topped with toasted rice powder is a salty-sweet-crunchy-meaty mouth party. The skin on the fried hot lemon chicken is as glassy as the water of Casco Bay. The mee kathung, another Khmer staple, made with broad rice noodles, is tangled with braised beef and served with an unusually rich five-spice gravy. It tastes like home, no matter where home is or what language one uses to describe it.