New Farm Bistro — Restaurant in Brisbane City

We arrived early at 5.50 and were seated at our reserved table right away. The restaurant is lacking in ambience inside - very bright down lights, like a canteen - we commented to each other that they could turn those off and just use the 4 pendant lights as more mood lighting. The restaurant dining area inside is a bit old fashioned - old tiles and painted brick walls and the bright lights really exposed that. Noise levels were deafening - it was hard to hear each other even sitting around a round table. It wouldn’t take much to modernise it and make the dining area more ambient. The outside courtyard looked cute, but it was raining and not undercover. Unfortunately a large group had children who were frequently running around other tables until their parents woke up and stepped in.

The 4 of us ordered some wine and starters while our friends caught up choosing their mains (it had taken ages to find a car parking space in local streets). I ordered an Indian style starter as I planned to have the signature dish, butter chicken. Our friends did too as they were ordering Dahl for their mains. Starters arrived about 30 mins later but missing one of the starters (arancini which my husband had ordered) - at this point we requested to order our mains as no one had returned to take that order. On ordering butter chicken I was advised that “it sold out yesterday” (on Friday) and was not available at 6.30pm on a Saturday evening! It would have been nice to be told that at the very start as we wouldn’t have ordered Indian style starters then. Not sure why that couldn’t have been made in prep for a busy Saturday night - it wasn’t a huge menu so shouldn’t be missing mains I feel. Around 20-30 mins later the missing arancini turned up - it was luckily delicious, but very odd eating after our friends had long finished. Our friends enjoyed the samosa’s too. I didn’t like the pani puri - stone cold smashed potato and tasteless crispy balls. Not sure if that’s what it was meant to be like as have never had it before - I couldn’t eat it though. It got to 7.10 and still no arrival of mains. By this point we were getting annoyed and worried as we would have to leave at 7.30 latest to walk to the Powerhouse for the comedy show starting at 7.45. Given we had arrived at 5.50, this shouldn’t have been any issue I feel. At 7.15 x2 lentil dahl’s turned up - unfortunately stone cold - a cold bowl and so cool our friends could stick their finger in it and barely detect heat. My friend’s husband said out loud “this is sh*t!” Even the rice was cold. They declared it too late to be able to send it back and reluctantly ate what they could of it so not to go hungry - their poppadoms were a no show to accompany their Dahl. My husband enjoyed his Italian sausage and mash in gravy. Meanwhile I’m still waiting for my gnocchi amatriciana and it’s now almost 7.30 - at this point I decide to go up to complain and pay while they are still eating. I explain all this to the waitress who doesn’t even apologise and goes out the back to the kitchen. She returns to say they would take the price of gnocchi off the bill. No recognition of the cold dahl’s or delays/ missing Poppadum’s. I tapped my card for the $196 bill and we left, only just making it in time to the powerhouse. Overall this was a very poor experience. I travelled from the Sunshine Coast to end up with half a starter to eat (shared my husband’s arancini which came late) and no main course which came out about 20 mins ,after the other 3 mains at the table, while I was paying the bill. The food was nothing to rave about or cold and service was slow given the restaurant wasn’t even full. The response to the complaint was poor. It would have been nice if the owner came out to discuss instead of hiding in the kitchen and letting teenage staff deal with it. Never again! - I’d avoid like place like the plague. We chose this place based off of mostly great reviews. It was so disappointing! It ruined a night - just as well the comedian was good as we needed the laughs after...

We booked a table to eat on 2 March 2025 based on the very flattering online ratings and on the statements on the website to the effect that the owner was Indian , and focused on food as part of that culture - hence the Indian dishes on the menu. We therefore assumed that the restaurant was able to deliver an authentic curry - making us book there rather than the other Indian restaurants in the New Farm area.

The experience on the day was really poor and disappointing :

The menu published online had been cut down significantly - for example no fish curry and no mutton curry now appeared on the menu.

We ordered the butter chicken having seen the pictures online of a generous serving of chicken in what appeared to be a rich butter sauce - as would normally be expected for that dish from any restaurant serving Indian food .

Unfortunately the dish delivered consisted of a few isolated cubes of chicken below the surface of a a thin watery sauce . It bore no resemblance to the published dish .

When ordering the butter chicken we had asked the waitress whether we needed 2 portions of rice or 1. She went and asked the chef who said that one would be enough .We therefore ordered the butter chicken with 1 rice . When the dishes arrived it was clear that (1) the rice dish was small (clearly only enough for just one person) and (2) the sauce was watery and would need another rice dish to soak it up .

We therefore ordered another portion of rice. We were stunned when the poor waitress was despatched to tell us that the restaurant had “run out of rice “- we had already received their last portion. So when they accepted the order for 2 curries they were never able to deliver 2 rices - just the one . Unfortunately we were not told that when we ordered the curries .

To be fair to the restaurant ( and chef )the curry , while watery and disappointing , was edible. But it was not the tasty rich butter sauce with plenty of chicken that one would expect and as was published - particularly from a restaurant billed as being run by an Indian national . It felt like the restaurant was on the most basic care and maintenance only, on a very quiet Sunday night before the restaurant shut down on Monday and Tuesday.

This was the first time we had been to a restaurant purporting to serve Indian dishes which has run out of rice - the most basic constituent of Indian cuisine that is bought in bulk and is easily stored . Looks like something has gone wrong with the management of this restaurant - or perhaps an off night.

8.The decor and atmosphere of the restaurant...

I had the Ragu Pappardelle. I have never been so disappointed in a meal. I asked for a spoon to twirl my pasta onto. There was no twirling to be had as the pasta was so overcooked that it was virtual little broken squares of mush!

My husband had the Fish curry which was meant to be their 10/10 MKR dish. It tasted and smelt like grandma’s perfume and had a soapy flavour to it.

My daughter had the lentils and pork belly with apples. She said there was mostly lentils, the pork belly was mostly all fat and she got two small mouth fulls of apple. Most disappointing. Even our Lemon Lime & Bitters drinks were flat.

We went there thinking it was still the Italian Restaurant that had been there for years which had exceptional food!

The only redeeming thing was the rice for my husband’s curry.

To say we were disappointed was an understatement. Overpriced for what we got. We’ve had better food in a shopping centre food court! We shan’t...