Overview
When you spend your life cooking up dishes so delicious that you've become famous for them, and penning books filled with recipes as well, where do you dine when someone else is preparing the meal? When you're a British celebrity chef hitting Brisbane for a live speaking gig, which eateries take your fancy? We're talking about Nigella Lawson, who paired her trip to the River City with giving the tick of approval to several Fortitude Valley eateries: Agnes, Sushi Room and the bakery at The Calile Hotel.
The Nigella Bites, Nigella Feasts, Nigella Kitchen, Nigellissima, Simply Nigella, Nigella: At My Table, Top Chef, MasterChef Australia and My Kitchen Rules star first showered praise on Agnes and Adam Wolfers, who is now the Group Chef at Anyday, the outfit behind it, Biànca, sAme sAme, hôntô, LOS (sAme sAme's cocktail bar) and Agnes Bakery (Agnes' woodfired pastry offshoot). Then, Lawson backed it up with more affection for two fellow Valley spots, both on James Street.
"Best-ever croissants at the bakery in The Calile Hotel Brisbane — and what makes them even better, if that's actually possible, is that the baker of them is called Ju Butteri," she noted.
"It would be hideously remiss of me not to mention the beautiful sushi at Sushi Room, too," Lawson also posted on social media.
So, if you've watched Lawson on television, whipped up her recipes at home and filled your shelves with her books, you can now eat where she did, and then raved about, without leaving Brisbane.
The author of How to Eat: Pleasures and Principles of Good Food, Nigella's Cook, Eat, Repeat and more took to the stage at QPAC Concert Hall on Thursday, March 14, 2024 for An Evening with Nigella Lawson. Around that speaking engagement, she did what everyone does when they're in a different city: feast their way through the place, then tell everyone on Instgram.
Joshua Maguire
Sushi Room opened on James Street in 2022, with the crew behind Hellenika and SK Steak & Oyster, aka STK Group, branching out into Japanese fine-dining. Its focus is on simple ingredients, sophisticated dishes and traditional preparation, all while still turning the act of making its meals into an experience, and also giving the whole process its own spin along the way.
And The Calile, which launched in 2018, must be used to international attention by now — and recently. The boutique place to stay was picked as Oceania and Australia's top spot at the World's Best 50 Hotels in 2023, then named as one of the reasons that The New York Times chose Brisbane for its '52 Places to Go' list for 2024.
Sean Fennessy
Sean Fennessy
Find The Calile Hotel at 48 James Street, Fortitude Valley.
Find Sushi Room inside The Calile Hotel, 48 James Street, Fortitude Valley — open from 5.30pm Tuesday–Thursday, and from 12pm Friday–Saturday.