E'cco (Brisbane) 09

This highly awarded restaurant at 100 Ann St. offers bistro dining with a concentration on ‘honest food’. Fresh ingredients, treated with respect, served without being excessively fussed over aiming to deliver the best qualities of the produce. The place is a simple room, seating about 60, with a bar along one side and an open kitchen at which half a dozen chefs can be seen laboring to fill diners orders.




Tables are bare wood and dress code is extremely casual. Jeans and sneakers were common. We started with an entrée of grilled whiting, curry spiced cauliflower, wild rocket, raisins & flaked almonds. ($ 24.50)
which was pleasant but not at all noteworthy. The eggplant & fetta agnolotti, smoked tomato, hazelnuts, pecorino & burnt butter vinaigrette was much better with fine well matched flavours and interesting textures. ($ 24.50). The grimaud duck breast, spiced sweet potato, sweet corn purée, swiss chard & sauce diable

was another pleasant but very ordinary dish. ($ 39.50) The roast spatchcock, polenta cake, baby carrots, broccolini, spring onions, mustard & marjoram was a tiny serve


and again not what I would expect, taste wise, from a leading restaurant. The cape grim eye fillet of beef, wild mushrooms, pommes maxim & roast garlic crème fraîche.($42.50)

was just a reasonably tasty and tender piece of meat again nothing at all special. Our dessert, a trio of lemon mousse, ice cream and creme brulee was very nicely presented and tasted as good as it looked. The service was pleasant but the presentation of the dishes was monotonous with little variation in the look of each serve. I found this a good bistro style restaurant with a bustling, noisy happy atmosphere

Score: 15/20