Australian National Hotel — Restaurant in Brisbane City

FOOD & DRINK The Aussie Nash is part of the A.L.H. Group of Hotels, whose stable includes the Royal Exchange Hotel, the Brunswick, the Newstead, the Indooroopilly, Newmarket and many others in and around Brisbane. We‘ve been to most of them and have never failed to be impressed by the high standard of food, service and hygiene. The A.N. was no exception. My wife and I dined on a quiet Saturday night in November. We kept the ordering protocol fairly simple: a schooner of Great Northern Super Crisp for me and a lemon, lime and bitters for my wife, followed by two main meals, the senior steak with chips, salad and pepper sauce ($19) and the Buddha bowl with lemon and pepper flavoured calamari for my wife ($28). My steak was well cooked to perfection, just the way I like it, but still tender and full of flavour. The crispy chips and nutritious salad made the perfect accompaniment. The Buddha bowl had rice, seaweed, avocado, cucumber, tomato, vegetables and lettuce, and topped with a soy and sesame dressing. All the ingredients were fresh, tasty and wholesome. Adding the calamari was a genius move to give it an extra zing and lift. We ended with our fav sticky date pud at 10 pesos. The pud was sweet and moist, covered with a syrupy butterscotch sauce, and sprinkled with a few drops of castor sugar. All meals were nicely presented to the table on stylish and colourful crockery.

AMBIENCE The A.N. is airy, spacious and homely, with plenty of room to stretch out and get comfortable. Outside the bistro is the billiards area, and there’s also a pub and a poker machine room, so there are many different spaces here to enjoy. We stuck to the bistro area. The decor is retro industrial style, with high ceilings, strong lighting, wood and steel furniture and carpets throughout. This all works beautifully to create an inviting, warm and welcoming atmosphere. Being a quiet night, there was only a smattering of other guests, but that didn’t detract from the overall cool ambience. Acoustics were good and we were easily able to converse.

SERVICE It was a breeze to order using the app. You simply scan the little barcode that’s attached to a disc on your table, and place your order. Payment is done immediately, and you’ll receive an email of your bill. This simplifies the whole procedure, although only afterwards did I notice that seniors are entitled to 20% discount off regular menu items, but of course the app didn’t recognise that, so we lost out. After completing the ordering, meals were brought out to the table pretty quickly by a super nice young man, neatly turned out in a smart black uniform. He was polite, friendly and attentive, and in his capable hands, everything ran smoothly from beginning to end, and that’s just how we like it!

COST All up, for a schooner of Great Northern, a cold drink, two main meals and a single dessert we paid 70 pesos, so thank you to the A.L.H. Group for at least providing some financial relief to hard-pressed senior citizens. This at least is an affordable evening out for us, and it’s worth mentioning here, that most of the A.L.H. group hotels that we’ve visited have seniors menus and modest prices for both food and drink.

TOILETS Toilets are behind the bistro. There are ample male and female cubicles, and they’re clean and well provisioned, although I did notice some graffiti in the male toilet.

PARKING There’s easy parking right outside, in the venue’s own car park, which it shares with the popular and well-stocked Dan Murphy liquor store. This makes it extra convenient, especially if you’re still thirsty after your meal, as you can always pop into D.M. to top up the beer or wine cellar.

SUMMARY We love the A.L.H. Hotel Group and have had positive experiences at all their hotels. They have consistently high standards, with reasonable prices to match. The Aust Nash as it is affectionately called, now goes on our list of favourites for a return visit. With great food and service, modest prices, a relaxed ambience, clean toilets and easy parking, you have all the ingredients for a...

Stopped in with a couple mates after some city bike riding to grab a quick feed. We were greeted by all staff on our way in, and found a seat that was perfect for us. 2 of us got a beer, the third wasn't allowed one yet (licensing reasons) so he didn't actually get any drink. The server noticed this and brought over a cup of icy water. WITHOUT BEING ASKED! This was a new experience for us (we try new pubs and tavs pretty often) and we absolutely loved it! But it gets better.. the music was up to date enough for people of all age groups to still enjoy it, and wasn't loud, was quiet. Just perfect. AND THEN, another couple walked in. They got some drinks, grabbed a seat and had asked to change the channel on one of the TV's.. the same server who helped us seen absolutely no problem with this and just grabbed the remote and found a channel for them they wanted to watch. Didn't need to run off and do 4 other things first or anything, just got it sorted and got back to what needed to be done behind the bar.

We received our food, and it would be hard to top it.. we had garlic bread, which was hot (not over the top hot) and soft, not crunchy and hard. We got 2 stake sangas which were amazing! The egg just running out the side looked great, even down to the chips that tasted awesome! We also had the graziers beef pie. I have this pie religiously when we go to alh pubs, and this one was great! The potato was super soft and creamy, gravy actually had nice flavour and wasn't super watered down, and the pastry was nice and crunchy where it needed to be! Sometime at other places they are microwaved and just bleh..

AND THEN even after everything that we thought already was amazing, we actually got thanked for coming in.. this is a place we would go out of our way to go to. We are all sunshine coast locals and we would ride down just for a feed at this place.. highly recommend. Great food, great vibe, great service,...

I’ve recently held an event of mine in the upstairs function room at this venue. LOVE the function room and we did have a great night. The staff I dealt with were generally lovely and they were fine to chat to, however the lack of organisation and seemingly lack of interest shown in facilitating and setting up my function was extremely disappointing and even induced a level of anxiety. I paid over $1,000 for the event.. I didn’t expect to have to clean the function room myself on the morning of our event- (Ie. cleaning food scraps, scraping chewing gum from the lounges, and having to go and ask the Barman downstairs to borrow a vacuum and vacuum the place myself). I found myself a rag and a bottle of disinfectant from behind the bar, to wipe down the surfaces inside the space, and each rag was completely black with dirt and dust after use. Quite a few miscommunications and conflicting information throughout the process of organising my event. On the day of the event, it almost appeared like the staff had no idea my function was booked, despite being booked...