Treasures from the vault RESTAURANT Tony Harper Electric Avenue, across the road from its sibling venue, Canvas, is the most recent tenant in the building that was Crosstown (both Eating House and Public House). Before that, who knows what, but most likely something to do with bric-a-brac or antiques. Since its time as Crosstown it has seen plenty of cosmetic changes, but in the end it still has that old-building patina and furnishings that tie it firmly to its history. The building is something of a rabbit warren and Electric Avenue makes use of all of its nooks, crannies and rooms. There’s a bar, dining room and courtyard on the ground floor, and more upstairs. On the menu is a bar snack billed simply as Southside hot chicken (more Americana? Yawn). I’m warned, “It’s just chicken, nothing else”, and “It’s hot” ($12). Correct on both counts. The chilli content gets me sweating and the endorphins flowing (perfect) and the chicken – two wings and two tenderloins – is obviously well-treated well-sourced-meat, cleverly cooked in a rubbed and fried manner. But there’s nothing else, as forewarned, aside from the best damned wing sauce I’ve ever eaten. And by light years. The sauce is split, like the base of a good Thai curry – oil pooling, spice clumped. It’s messy to eat and we two blokes make quite a caveman statement in the otherwise well-
ELECTRIC AVENUE 23 Logan Rd, Woolloongabba Ph: 3891 2316
Chef: Will Quartel Eftpos and major credit cards Vegetarian options On-street parking
SCORES OUT OF 10 Food: 8.5 Vibe: 8
mannered, all-female room. Sorry ladies, but it’s hard to hold back when something tastes so primitively good. If Americana can be like this I’ll have it weekly. But the American tag doesn’t fit much of the menu. There are American elements to it – the chicken, a burger; blackened duck but it’s not a menu you can pin a genre or country upon. It’s more classic in its build, but creatively spun
Drinks: 8 Service: 8
with oddities – tempura saltbush for example, or meatfloss (what?), corn husk aioli. It’s a small collection with plenty of intrigue. Pork crackling ($8) comes as big, super-light, super-crunchy sheets: a texture similar to a good prawn cracker. Blackened duck breast ($36, inset) is brilliant – wintry, filling and playing with textures (meat, vegetable, crumb and cream) and flavours (sour, rich and gently sweet,
spice). Ditto lamb backstrap ($37) with radicchio, wattleseed and macadamia. Desserts sound like more of the same inventions: black garlic crepes ($15); aged bananas, burnt peel, miso, sesame peanut brittle. It’s clever food from a confident, competent kitchen. Everything else seems to follow in its wake – smooth, cosseting service, a very good array of drinks and enough atmosphere to create its own gravity. It has been put together by the folk from Canvas with two new partners, so there’s no lack of experience or understanding. It’s a clever concept, well executed, with a very talented chef as its cornerstone. Plus there’s the wardrobe: a touch of Narnia in Woolloongabba. No white queen, no Mr Tumnus but you step through the wardrobe, past a couple of coats, into the Jack Rabbits Whisky Bar, with its sensational collection of whiskies. It’s clever stuff.
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