Expect caviar and champagne pop-ups, masterclasses and demonstrations. Star chef Matt Moran will be there, as will renowned tuna master Narito Ishii.
South Bank’s first-ever seafood festival? Really?
Brisbane’s iconic riverside precinct is making up for lost time by hosting a long-overdue celebration of everything ocean-going.
Across the last weekend of May, the River Quay Green precinct will be transformed with seafood stalls, pop-up bars, live chef demonstrations, and interactive masterclasses. The talent on hand will include star chef Matt Moran, Kyushu-born tuna master and seafood expert Narito Ishii, and former Otto head chef Will Cowper.
“This was being planned quite a few months before I was leaving Otto, I guess,” says Cowper, who departed the riverside Italian in March. “So I’m pretty excited to be able to make it back.
“South Bank used to host Regional Flavours, which was an excellent event, and this feels like an updated version of that, in an era when Queensland seafood – and local appreciation for Queensland seafood – has really come on strong.”
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The two-day program features seafood stalls and waterfront bars – including a caviar and champagne pop-up by Otto – and signature seafood dishes and festival dine-in offers at Otto, Popolo, Naga Thai and River Quay Fish.
Elsewhere, classes and showcases will include a tuna-cutting demonstration by Ishii, and a masterclass by Cowper and Fish Factory general manager Andrew Solomon on fish filleting and the different techniques for cooking seafood.
“It’s just about opening people’s eyes,” Cowper says. “Illustrating what they can do with a whole fish rather than be confined to buying fillets – even just teaching them about the questions to ask.”
Beyond Moran and Ishii, there will be plenty of Brisbane talent from outside the South Bank precinct, including Tillerman’s Shaun Presland and The Fifty Six’s Gerald Ong.
“South Bank have put some wonderful effort into this,” says Andrew Baturo, who owns Tillerman and co-owns The Fifty Six. “It will be great to have Matt [Moran] back in town; he’s an honorary Queenslander.
“But these key cuisines that we love in Brisbane – whether it’s Italian at Popolo or Thai at Naga [both owned by Baturo] – all have such a strong focus on seafood.
“But River Quay Green is such a brilliant precinct, and I think, dynamically – with Queen’s Wharf now open across the river and the new theatre at QPAC – it’s closer to the city than it’s ever been in some ways, so this feels like a great way to celebrate that.”
River Quay Green hosts South Bank Seafood Festival May 30-31.
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
