Lennons Hotel must have been a riot in its heyday. I have a family photo from the late ’50s taken at a wedding banquet that ­captures some of the grandeur. There are rows and rows of glasses and polished ­cutlery. The ladies in the pic are dripping with jewellery. All wear white gloves. Little girls have flowers in their hair.

Brisbane’s first Lennons Hotel was built by John Lennon in 1884 in the style of the Savoy in London, albeit on a smaller scale. It was knocked down and rebuilt in 1941, according to stories in The Courier-Mail. Another new Lennons emerged in Queen St in 1972. It was one of the city’s tallest buildings. In its various guises Lennons hosted assorted VIPs including Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, Sir Robert Menzies, US president Lyndon Johnson, inventor Alexander Graham Bell and the Beatles.

General Douglas MacArthur was 62 when he moved into the hotel in 1941. He didn’t like the food and reportedly set up a makeshift kitchen in his wife June’s suite. Fussy, fussy, I thought as I walked in MacArthur’s footsteps down Queen St Mall ­recently to NEXT hotel, a former Lennons.

The Lennons name is preserved at NEXT in a smart yet rather austere rest­aurant on the first floor overlooking the mall. I took the escalator from the mall, passing a shoeshine man in the lobby ­before joining friends at a table by a large window. MacArthur would have approved. And no doubt he would have joined us in slurping plump oysters ($3.50 apiece). Each was a little cup of contradictory flavours, sweet and sometimes briny, and ending as usual with a joyfully creamy and metallic maritime riff. There were more informal offerings such as beef burgers with sliced pickles and tomato jam ($20), a margherita pizza ($17) and a waldorf salad with horseradish mayonnaise ($14).

One of my dining companions ordered the beer-battered fish with tartare sauce and coleslaw ($24), without even asking what sort of fish it was. It turned out to be barramundi, moist and beautifully cooked and a fair helping for the price.

We soon discovered that Lennons serves well-made food of exactly the right type and style for the room, the location and the customers. And the wait staff were friendly and knowledgeable.

For my main, I ate a 200g Diamantina Angus eye fillet ($38). It was billed as a grass-fed offering from Tasmania, which is a very long way from Queensland’s dusty Diamantina shire that adjoins the South Australian and Northern Territory borders. On both sides of the Pacific there is a snobbish debate raging as to whether grass-fed beef has more or less flavour than cattle finished on grain, and some Stateside opinionistas show their ignorance by ­deriding the flavour of grain-fed beef. It’s an arcane argument because of seasonal and geographical variations and cooking techniques. I’ve tasted grass-fed beef from hard country that was devoid of flavour.

The Tassie fillet was wonderful, no doubt because it was grown in more lush pastures where there is plenty of rain.

The real treat came at the end of our meal with a sticky, salted caramel tart served with Lindt chocolate and macerated strawberries. It was a knockout.

This review originally appeared on couriermail.com.au.