“Gentlemen! You can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!” There’s no getting around the Dr Strangelove energy humming through Central, Brisbane’s newest underground dumpling bunker, er, bar. But the expansive overhead lighting combined with the unfinished stone walls, concrete pylons and buffed slate grey counters only serve to highlight the warmth of the dishes coming out of the kitchen.

The brainchild of Benny Lam, a Hong Kong ex-pat and design-obsessed chef. Lam has teamed up with the minds behind Rick Shores on the Gold Coast and Southside in Brisbane to bring a taste of Hong Kong to the CBD. Emulating the work-restaurant-home dining style of Hong Kong, Lam and Central general manager Maui Manu aim to toe the line between high-concept dining and the gritty history of the Queen Street site.

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Home to the ground-breaking Primitif Cafe in the 50s and 60s – frequented by jazz fans and beatniks – the subterranean space has been redesigned by Jared Webb of J.AR Office (who also oversaw the refurb of Gerard’s Bistro) with granite, timber, exposed rock walls and the centrepiece: a raised kitchen visible from across the venue. 

Design nerds may feast with the eyes but those with a stomach-based hunger will be thrilled with the selection of dim sum, noodles, and east-meets-west starters.

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Beef tartare is served with a Cantonese lilt, where Wagyu steak is finely diced and dressed with sticky-sweet chu hou sauce and mustard greens, to be scooped with spicy Sichuan crisps. Smoked foie gras tops ‘Youtiao’, (a crisp, fried breadstick) and is tempered with the tart acid of Davidson plum. Deeply bronzed duck is roasted over lychee wood; and delicate steamed grouper is beefed up with shiitake mushroom and sharp pickled greens. We haven’t even gotten to the dim sum yet.

No one can resist a spring roll – particularly when said roll is a blend of king crab and prawn meat, dipped greedily into a crab fat tartar sauce. What’s a pork and prawn sui main without a shaving of black truffle? And we’re officially intrigued by the sweet-and-sour pineapple bun, enriched with smoked butter and crisp prosciutto.

We could go on but the point remains the same: Central has created a concrete mould of its own design and a menu that blurs the familiar with something deeply creative and refreshing.

Find Central at 340 Queen St, Brisbane. For more details and to book, head to the Central website here. 

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