Wine bar meets adult rumpus room (with a fancified chip butty).
Milquetoast
Contemporary$$
Milquetoast is a word that means a timid or feeble person (the Oxford’s definition, not ours). But it’s also a Brisbane wine bar set inside a CBD garage that opened off Elizabeth Street in 2024. It plays like the rumpus room of your adult dreams, owners George Curtis and James Horsfall filling the space with vintage timber tables, and leather and velvet chairs and bar stools.
The vino that takes centre stage here. Horsfall has put together a 50-bottle list that covers both Australian and international drops and focuses on small producers, grower champagnes and limited allocations. There’s also a cocktail list that focuses on higher end spirits, and a martini menu that each month showcases a different distillery.
A bar and open kitchen runs down one side of the venue. It’s here that head chef Oliver Chia oversees a menu that celebrates and elevates classic British comfort food. Expect classics such as devilled eggs, spice-bag quail and smoked eel (with salt and vinegar crisps, of course).
Must-order: Milquetoast’s chip butty ($16) matches meticulously made potato pave with classic thick-cut Tip Top bread.
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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.
