The details
Few of Brisbane’s significant figures have had as much of an impact on the growth of the city as 19th-century businessman Thomas Charles Beirne. Alongside business partner-turned-rival James McWhirter, the duo helped shape the early fabric of Fortitude Valley, with their opposing department stores making Brunswick Street a hub of commerce throughout the early 1900s. The T.C. Beirne Building is now the home of a new bar and eatery that pays homage to Beirne himself – the Celissa Group’s (Isles Lane, The Met, GPO) 24-hour gastropub Beirne Lane. Seeking to add a dash of refined old-world charm to the edginess of Brunswick Street Mall, Celissa’s Trent Meade and Matt Blyth jumped at the chance to take over the cavernous space when it was offered. The enterprising tandem decided to tell the story of T.C. Beirne himself through an engaging culinary offering, while also ambitiously looking to do their part in furthering Brisbane’s status as a lively new-world city.

The space
Labelled as a ‘house of the people’, Beirne Lane has been designed to be accommodating to all. AZBCreative and French Designs helped conceptualise the Brunswick Mall-fronting space, which has been fitted out by Shopbuilders to include a dual-level interior with a mixture of sit-down dining and casual bar-style seating, as well as exterior drinking areas at the venue’s front and down a secluded alleyway. Old-world advertisements on the venue’s exterior, smart tiling work and white marble communicate a department-store vibe, but timber furnishings and greenery help bring the outside in and give the space a lived-in feel. A sizeable kitchen named the Valley Corner Diner has been equipped with a dry-ageing cabinet and a Josper charcoal oven, while eye-catching geometric lamps illuminate Beirne Lane’s stunning bar.

The food and drink
Beirne Lane’s food and drink menu is heavily influenced by T.C. Beirne’s Irish heritage and keen interest in Japanese cuisine. Head chef Zac Sykes (North Bondi Fish, The Fish Shop) has been recruited to oversee the venue’s impressive 24-hour food offering. In good news for night owls, Beirne Lane will have coffee and something to eat at any time of day or night, starting with breakfast bites and pastries in the morning (a full breakfast service will come soon), followed by a lunch menu featuring five (yes, five) kinds of katsu sando, sashimi plates, poke bowls and fare from the charcoal oven. The dinner menu plates up karaage quail, smoked rainbow trout, steaks from the dry-age cabinet, lamb rump and miso-roasted salmon. Beirne Lane’s signature dish – the Shilling Meal – is inspired by the feed commonly enjoyed by T.C. Beirne’s warehouse workers. Four oysters, a 600-gram rib-eye steak, onion rings, greens and a clotted-cream cannoli makes for a perfect shared meal. A late-night bar-snack menu continues on into the evening, offering baked cob loaf with beer cheese, cheesy Japanese curry sauce-covered chips, fried fish wings and sandos. Beirne Lane’s bar – overseen by Steven Drakopoulos (Mary’s, Porteno, Bentley Restaurant and Bar) – is well stocked with a range of offbeat and mainstream beverages. Biodynamic, minimal intervention and skin-contact wines are common, alongside experimental cocktails, rotating craft beers and much more.

Beirne Lane is open now. For more details, seek out the venue’s entry in the Stumble Guide.