Gerard’s Bistro — Restaurant in Brisbane City

Dined on a Tuesday evening, so plenty inside seating available, wouldn't want to sit outside on winter nights😅.

Seems to be a popular restaurant and can see why, the atmosphere is very comfortable and intimate, the music sounded like a live band at first so was very inviting. Service took a while to bring menus and order so that could be improved, but all workers were very friendly.

Overall I wasn't satisfied with the experience, paid $138 I believe and ordered all the vego food items, even ordered an additional serving of the main dish sugarloaf cabbage, but felt still hungry afterwards. Ate everything but ended up going to Dominoes after to buy a pizza and garlic bread! Would be nice if there were more vegetarian options, the serving sizes were extremely small. I would suggest a healthy vegetarian soup or some sort of stir fry with brown rice to make it feel more like a meal. Some falafel, tofu - more protein needs to be included to create a satisfying, balanced, vego meal.

The cost of the meals seemed high with the portion size, and the food was very salty and buttery, very rich. Would have been nice to have simply more vegetables and less fat to make you feel full.

Sugarloaf Cabbage 4/5 🥙- small serving size, but this tasted very nice, a bit too much sauce flavour though. Ordered twice.

Broccoli 2/5🥦🥦 - I love broccoli but this dish was just a real disappointment, extremely small serving size, and the flavours didn't appeal to me, just tasted like broccoli mixed with lemon juice. And this was a 'main' dish as well.

Celeriac kataifi 4/5🥬🥬🍝 - this dish was a pleasant surprise, was a good balance of being filling and flavourful but not too rich. I felt satisfied with ordering this dish.

Wood-fired potato bread 4/5🥔🥔🍞 - a larger serving or some za'taar bread on the side to eat as well would be good. I prefer less fatty bread as well, it was extremely oil and then getting a glass jar of basically oil and goats curd wasn't too appealing.

A very nice restaurant, but as their websites states 'award winning Brisbane restaurant,' I was expecting a lot more. I try be vegan as well and felt there was a lack of vegan options. Would be great to see more menu vego items with more variety, and to ensure that vegetarians don't go...

I will admit that when I first sat down and looked at the menu (which is different to the website and the photos) I was a little dubious. However the waitress was lovely and I could sense that she really liked the food herself.

Having said that, it didn’t start too well. My radar was up when the mezze served was a fairly small plate of cucumber with hommus and three tomoato cherries. I was getting worried. This is the kind of thing we all fear.

But then the calamari and side serving of puffy pastry bread came out. And this dish stopped me mid-consumption. The zesty bite was fantastic. It’s not easy to turn someone around who was starting to lose faith. This dish did that. I was thoroughly impressed. I enjoyed every bite. The quantity is small. But it makes sense when it is this tasy. When things are dancing on your tongue and under your cheek like that. It redefines what it means to be a savoury dish. Tantalising fine food.

The waygu followed. And this one turned out to be my favourite. My head was bursting. And I’m a bbq kinda guy. This might have been my first actually impressive fine food experience. And it was phenomenal. I couldn’t stop talking about it the whole night. And even the next day amongst colleagues at a conference I was attending.

While I have had previous fine food experiences, I have been disappointed by the focus on creativity and presentation. That flowery ensemble doesn’t impress me. But Gerard’s bistro was fine food that focused completely on taste.

My favourite experience while here in Brisbane....

We went to Gerard's bistro for dinner on Valentine's Day and had the 4-course menu. The food was different and delicious and the service was spot on! Portion sizes were very small however, and we were still hungry afterwards. Dessert we felt, was the only course that was a nice serving size.

Unfortunately we were uncomfortable with the environment as it was a very warm Brisbane evening and we were seated outside the restaurant where there was no air conditioning or fans set up. Outside the restaurant we were seated in a corridor between buildings where there was very minimal airflow as well; you can imagine how we felt with plenty of other diners around us. If we didn't order the set banquet, we honestly would've quickly finished eating so that we could pay the bill and head somewhere else.

Not only this, but we were disappointed with the lack of presentation of and around the dining table. We walked past many restaurants on the way here and they all had a little something (tealights, flowers, plants, decorative furniture, even tablecloths) whereas here, there were just chairs and the dining table itself with dinnerware. At a place of this price bracket that serves great food, we would've expected more attention to detail for a regular dinner service, let alone on a special occasion like Valentine's Day.

At this stage, we would only recommend this restaurant for a good dinner, but not if you are seeking anything more like a romantic evening or to celebrate a...