It features a new design and a new, graze-friendly food menu. What hasn’t changed? Those one-of-a-kind views.
What if I told you Brisbane’s best rooftop bar isn’t Soko or Maya or Iris. That it isn’t a heaving, DJ-driven spot in buzzy Fortitude Valley or the CBD or Woolloongabba.
Instead, you’ll find it in New Farm – a little perch atop an old Queenslander a couple of blocks back from the river. If the rooftop bar at Spicers Balfour, which is simply named Rooftop Bar, isn’t Brisbane’s best, then it’s at least its most singular.
Occupying a converted attic reached by a narrow staircase, its views aren’t across skyscrapers and packed city streets. The office towers are there, sure, but in the distance, framed by a patchwork of lush foliage, rusted tin roofs and the peaks of the Story Bridge.
It’s very quiet, very green, unmistakably Brisbane.
“A lot of our international guests don’t know where Balfour is, exactly,” assistant general manager Cathy Madden says. “They just know they’re coming to Brisbane. Then they arrive and discover the bar – you really have to bring them up here – and they see the old buildings, the view.
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“You’re on this residential street; you don’t feel like you’re in the middle of everything. It’s an amazing introduction to Brisbane.”
Rooftop Bar has now officially reopened after a long-planned refurbishment. Madden conducts a quick tour (what hasn’t changed is the bar’s size – it’s still super intimate) and points out new furniture, a green wall and, most importantly, a roof threaded with hanging greenery to protect guests from the elements. It’s relatively subtle stuff but makes better use of the available space.
The bar is already popular with locals, but the redesign is intended to make it more so.
“It’s more aimed at the neighbourhood, to give them somewhere to go, and I’ve noticed more events since we [relaunched],” Madden says. “Hen’s parties, baby showers, that kind of thing.”
Helping with that approachability is a new menu intended both for the bar and the restaurant downstairs. Gone is the French-Vietnamese cuisine, replaced by lighter, snack-driven, seasonal eats broadly European in style – think charred carrot skewers with tarragon and toasted sesame; ricotta gnocchi with pesto, pecorino and wild rice; Northern Territory baby barra with sauce vierge.
The food is backed by a tightly curated wine list that mostly keeps things super approachable but not at the expense of a few ballers such as a By Farr Farrside pinot and a Benjamin Leroux Volnay 1er Cru Les Mitans.
There are also house spins on classic cocktails and a decent selection of non-alcoholic drinks.
“We get a lot of locals who stop by for a drink,” Madden says. “One comes in for breakfast a lot of the time. She sits up there on a Saturday and has her Benedict.
“Spicers is such a relaxed luxury brand,” Madden says. “People feel very comfortable just wandering in, or else they walk past and are curious, and the team is super accommodating in those moments.”
Open 5pm-8.30pm (breakfast only 7am-11am)
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.
