When Nick and Meagan Gregorski took over Spring Hill’s Alliance Hotel back in 2012, they revamped it from a tired relic into one of our most progressive gastro pubs. They’re now using the same approach at their most recent acquisition, Brisbane’s long-standing Port Office Hotel on Edward St.

Fix Restaurant has gone and in its place is the elegant, European-inspired Port Office Dining Room – moody and sophisticated with dark timber floors, bentwood chairs and banquette seating.

The open kitchen dishes out a diverse range of hearty Mod Oz fare of pub-sized portions. The menu covers fare such as a half or whole chicken or duck cooked on a rotisserie, the mandatory grill section, and the most exciting – a nose-to-tail offering with everything from wood roast marrow bones to pork scratchings.

Perhaps the most challenging dish is the lamb sweetbreads with chicken hearts and pea waffle. While the offalaverse may wince, the animal off-cuts are superb, rendered into submission by a potent, mustard-heavy, devilled sauce which dominates.

The Borrowdale pork jowl is perfectly balanced. Glistening with a sweet, sticky tamarind glaze, the meat is impossibly tender, while curls of ginger and chilli-pickled kohlrabi provide heat and acidity, and fried quail eggs add another level of richness.

A shellfish bisque proves slightly overpowering for the delicate spanner crab souffle, but the venison main excites with its big serving and big flavour from a spiced lilly pilly jus, gorgonzola cream, nuggets of roasted Jerusalem artichokes, charred broccolini and walnuts for crunch.

A generous and wide-ranging drinks list along with informative, affable and well-paced service prove that when it comes to reviving pubs, the Gregorskis may just have the Midas touch.