Brisbane Phoenix

Brisbane Phoenix is a sleek contemporary Chinese restaurant specialising in yum cha and traditional seafood dishes, located at Brisbane Quarter in the CBD.

With striking red and black interior, featuring clusters of red lanterns and live seafood tanks, Brisbane Phoenix takes things up a notch from your standard Chinese restaurant, yet is a place where families with young children are made to feel at home.

The extensive menu features an impressive selection of yum cha dishes, which are ordered a la carte and brought to the table in lieu of the trolley system. Chef recommendations from the steamed menu include fresh crab meat xiao long bao, prawn and garlic chive dumpling, scallop and caviar shumai, or steamed pork ribs in mild chilli sauce; while from the fried section there's chicken spring roll, pan-fried pork bun, pork shanghai dumpling or spring onion pancake. 

The à la carte menu is a culinary journey through the regions of China, starting with soups such as seafood and tofu, and cold plates such as five spices beef shank or drunken chicken. Then for entrees, recommended are the Peking duck pancakes or quail Maryland in three cup sauce or salt and chilli tofu and pumpkin.

The bounty of live seafood comes at market price and includes green lip or baby abalone, lobster, snow and mud crab, coral trout, barramundi and sea perch, with various ways of cooking and different sauces available - ask the staff for recommendations. Otherwise, chef-recommended seafood dishes off the menu include lobster tail with garlic butter and black pepper and fried whole barramundi with ginger and shallot sauce.

From the chicken and duck dishes, there's crispy skin spatchcock in Shandong sauce, fragrant pipa duck or whole Peking duck (with 12 pancakes and 6 san choi bau), while beef, pork and lamb recommendations include pan-fried wagyu beef in roast sesame sauce and pan-fried lamb cutlet in chilli garlic flavour. Meanwhile, vegetable dishes include broccoli with dry scallop, salt and chilli prawn blended tofu, or bean curd Szechuan style. 

To accompany the food, there's a good selection of Australian and Chinese beers and wines (ask for recommendations of wines to go with dishes) and a smattering of cocktails.

Nice to know - Brisbane Phoenix has three elegant function rooms - Diamond (the biggest, seats up to 20), Emerald and Ruby.

The menu may have changed since our visit.

See our full curated list of restaurants in Brisbane CBD HERE