Something cataclysmic has just happened to Brisbane pub dining and I have a hunch it will raise the bar for the serious contenders in the pub food game. Take, for example, this snippet of a menu called Nose to Tail and its extraordinary tamarind glazed pork jowl; wood roast bone marrows; sweetbreads and chicken hearts; and duck, white truffle and pistachio sausage. Isn’t that something?

The menu belongs to the Port Office Dining Room, recently taken over (the pub and the Dining Room) by Nick and Meagan Gregorski, who also run the Alliance Hotel in Spring Hill. They have refurbished the whole place, including a rather sexy Raffles-like bar upstairs (where I’m sure I’ve done some messy nightclubbing in another life).

You can gaze into the kitchen from almost everywhere in the bistro-like Dining Room. A spanking new rotisserie slowly twirls chickens and ducks that make up the Rotisserie part of the menu: chicken Yucatán style ($27.90/$48.90); and the duck with rice, broccolini, burnt orange, white soy, miso and ginger ($36.90).

It’s a terrific piece of duck — skin intensely basted and accompaniments just sweet enough to bring out the mild gaminess of the bird. There’s a wee dish of jus to the side. Moist? Absolutely.

That was my wife’s main. I struggled to look past the Nose to Tail collection, settling on the pork jowl ($17.90, inset), sweetbreads and hearts ($19.90) and a main of suckling pig ($36.90). Three courses is a marathon for me. The fact that I went so hard is testament, I guess, to the allure of the menu.

Best by a country mile is the plate of sweetbreads and chicken hearts. It’s kooky, with a couple of waffles filled with mushy peas, a mustard sauce, pea shoots and the offal: it’s great. Pork jowl is more of a crowd-pleaser, both sweetened and soured by the tamarind glaze and cooked pineapple, then cut by kohlrabi and radish slices. It’s a lot of big flavours rolled into one and the jowl is as rich as the coffers of Constantinople. I need to taste the marrows — the thought of them is driving me nuts. After that I’m almost full, but the suckling pig is terrific — cherry mostarda, pickled turnips, celeriac sauerkraut.

Service is slick, more restaurant than pub, and the crockery and stemware follow suit. Given the rollercoaster ride of the menu, the drinks selection seems restrained. But there’s an experienced sommelier on board so I’m sure things will heat up.

Is this the best pub dining room in Brisbane? You bet.

This review originally appeared on couriermail.com.au.