Toro Bravo

Went here with the boyfriend on a Thursday and tried out their Paella Special (2 paellas and jug of sangria for $ 45). Could not tell you if the paellas were ‘authentic’ or not but they were super delicious! We had the pork belly and chicken, prawn and chorizo paellas. Good portions, right amount of meat to rice ratio and nice seasoning throughout. There was enough sangria to enjoy before, during and after our meal. It was an enjoyable casual dinner date on their outdoor patio and I would not hesitate to come back.

My experience with Toro Bravo was pretty average. The plates I tried were reasonably well-​cooked, albeit incredibly basic. Ordinarily I don’t care all that much for outlandishly fancy cuisine, and are pretty easily impressed with any effective combination of flavours — but chicken wings should not even be on the menu at an establishment that wants to stand out as gourmet.
They could definitely use more vegetarian options, too. Not just for people like me, but to make the menu a bit more varied, and a tad healthier. The spiced potatoes from Olé are about 300% better and more traditional style. From what other reviews have said though, I imagine their focus is on steak at Toro Bravo, anyway.
Otherwise, the venue itself is lovely — it seemed to host a few good larger parties which were well catered for, the bathrooms were clean and the wait staff were polite and knowledgeable.

Fantastic steaks again, Taylor our waitress was exceptional. Meal times were a bit lengthy, but food was brilliant. Can’t beat 241 Tuesdays!

Incredibly good tapas and steak. Great place to chill with a group of your closest mates and have a few drinks and nibbles. The service was very professional!

I like to think that I’m across what’s happening in Brisbane. I read the weekly digital mags, engage on Twitter, read the Brisbane Times every other day and generally collect bits and pieces along the way that gives me a pretty good idea of what’s hip and happening. So how is it that Toro Bravo has escaped my attention all this time? Have I been living under a rock? Apparently. Because Toro Bravo is very happening.
The spacious front bar has lots of wooden surfaces, twinkling candles and leather seating and, on the chilly night we visited, a nice little open fire against the back wall. Restrained elegance and very much like a room you might see on one of the Scandi dramas around at present. The back half of the room is divided by the bar and wine wall, opening onto an intimate dining space with striking artwork on the walls and low lighting that is so loved by venues and so hated by bloggers trying to take photos.
Toro Bravo draws it’s menu from Spain with some small incursions into the North of Africa. It has an extensive wine list with Spanish wines by the bottle and glass and excellent quality Australian wines by the bottle only. Of course there are tapas, as well as their bigger brother raciones, larger meals and a range of sides. Before we go any further let’s talk about tapas. We all know that tapas originated in Spain. Originally a simple piece of bread (a lid or ‘tapa’) used to cover a drink to protect it from thirsty flies, it has evolved into a small dish of tasty snacks with classic such as albondigas, patatas bravas and croquettas. Along the way the concept of tapas has been hijacked by the food industry. It’s a lazy tag for non traditional tapas items. Spring Rolls are Spring Rolls. They are not tapas, no matter how you dress it up. It’s also the perfect way for restaurants to charge very large amounts of money for very small amounts of food and tell people it’s ‘shared style dining’. Meanwhile, back at Toro Bravo I am happy to report that none of this is happening. In fact, it’s completely the opposite.
We ordered the montadito (small sandwich — $ 3.90) to nibble on whilst we perused the menu. When it arrived on our table, the ‘small sandwich’ turned out to be a decent bread roll, loaded with slow cooked shredded pork with pickled zucchini. More than a few bites, it presaged what was to come. As the tender calamari and moist meatballs in darkly spicy sauce started to arrive at the table is was evident we had underestimated the size of a portion at Toro Bravo. The Manchego & Breadbrumbed Zucchini Batons w Aioli ($ 8.90) were a delight. Tender without being soggy and with a delicious crunchy coating, I continued to ferry these to my mouth, knowing that at the same time I was doing a disservice to the meals yet to arrive. All great dishes and all so more-​ish. Three for three suggests that other items I saw going past such as the tortilla and massive paella would have been just as good. These three dishes alone would have sufficed as a decent meal yet we still had mains on the way.
With my meal, I enjoyed a glass of dry, savoury crisp La Purisma Rosado (rose’) which had only the faintest tint of pink to it. At $ 8.50 a glass, it was very good value and would be perfect at the bar on your way home on a Friday night with say… a plate of Zucchini Batons. Get yourself there as soon as you can and, come hungry.

Good to go to for tapas style dinner with mates. Favourites were the dates wrapped in bacon & dunked in maple syrup and the spicy potato.
Wine list had a good selection of South American style vino’s too.
I’d recommend to someone looking for tapas style dinner in the Valley.

Hotel Bravo is perfect for dining and quick drinks. I found that the bartender was very clever with a few tricks up his sleeve. Literally!
Very chic and sexy. Their décor is mid-​up scale. The food menu is all Australian. Great seating area for those friends who smoke. i can leave without smelling like an ash tray. drinks are mixed well but who can tell after 3 – 4, right? In a quiet area away from the loud bars and night life on Brunswick St. Parking is available on Arthur St.(one street away from venue.)

My meal here put me in a terrible mood.
We rocked up around 8:15pm and asked the waitress if it was too late to sit down, she said no and took us to a table. All good.
We looked through the beverage list hoping to find their list of non-​wine alcoholic beverages… there wasn’t one. That’s a bit odd in my book, so we had to ask the poor waitress to list down all the beers and ciders she had to we could make a choice. Weird.
We ordered a bread to share — the chilli basil flatbread for $ 10.50. In my mind, I was expecting a pizza style bread with a few slices in it. Instead we received a panini bun cut into quarters. Whatever was on this piece of panini bread wasn’t even chilli or basil! It was brushed with a huge amount of butter and what looked like old parsley and it kind of tasted like garlic. There was three of us… so maybe the waitress could have said, get something else? Or, they shouldn’t charge $ 10.50 for bread and butter with a food cost of less than $ 2, I bet. That’s almost 900% return for an AWFUL product. Not cool.
Then the waitress informed us that our mains would be a while because they just took a big table order. No worries.
Mains arrived. I ordered pork belly, my partner ordered kangaroo and my friend ordered the lamb shanks. Each came with a little boat containing a few potato wedges and some cold onion jam. Meh.
You know that point in the dinner when everyone at the table may say, «mmmm, this is nice» or, «wow, you should be so jealous that I ordered this dish». What we were actually saying was, «wow, this is awful».
I love pork belly with crispy skin, it’s kind of that thing I always order when I go out to eat. When I put this pork belly in my mouth, it was so unbelievably oily and flavourless, and the crackling was extremely disappointing. I’ve had amazing pork belly before with amazing crackling and my mouth didn’t fill with oil when I chewed. No one else had anything nice to say about their food so they didn’t say much at all (I guess they are nicer than me and listen to their mothers who said, «if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all»). REALLY BAD.
In all honesty, the only redeeming feature of our whole meal was a side dish. Their roasted pumpkin, cardamon, honey was delicious and I even found myself pouring the leftover juice from the bowl over my food so I could actually eat it. Sad.
We looked at the dessert, but were put off by the mains and didn’t want to spend much more money there. We decided just to get coffee and though, there’s one thing they can’t stuff up, surely. The milk was so overdone that it was boiling hot and the smell was rather off-​putting. The hot chocolate I ordered had hardly any cocoa in it so the overdone milk smell was even worse.
Why didn’t I complain during? To start with, I was really hungry, and secondly, I couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it in front of my friend when we were otherwise having a nice time.
It’s one of the worst meals I’ve had in recent times. Is this the reason people aren’t going out to restaurants as much these days? They have one bad experience at a restaurant they’ve been told is a great and they think, «well, if that’s the quality of food at a great restaurant I’d rather spend my money somewhere else».

I’ve been to a few celebrations thrown by a friend of mine who favours this place and it’s easy to see way. The cocktail list is extensive, the bartenders knowledgeable and there’s a great outdoor terrace to sit at and enjoy your food and drink. On weekends they do jugs of sangria — a great way to get the party started!
Re. food they do a range of tapas and mains. Personally I prefer ordering a few tapas items as compared to getting just one main. The crispy fried potatoes with chilli & tomato + sour cream are always good, and they do some really nice fresh Pacific oysters.
These guys do some good mid week specials. Ask at the bar and they’ll let you know…

Up Brunswick Road just a few hundred metres is this gem of a cocktail bar. With superbly trained bar staff if you really care about how dirty your dirty martini should be then this is the place for you.
I’ve been here a couple of times, usually by the request of a girl who’s travelling with us on the night, «I’ll let you try my Mai Tai and you’ll understand.» She said and understand we did. Hotel Bravo is a tiny bit out of your way if you considering going there and it uses this to it’s advantage, much quieter than any other place in the valley and with no dance floor this is a traditional bar in the strictest sense of the word. Expect to be surrounded by men in nice suits and women in more sophisticated wear than a few hundred metres north. A great little bar that’s perfect if your looking to talk over a few drinks.

I’m not much of steak eater, but these guys really do a great steak. The rest of the menu is pretty good, as well. A bit more upmarket than its neighbour, Bravo Wine Bar & Bistro, Bar.b.que will make a bigger dent in your wallet but it will feel justified.
The atmosphere inside the restaurant is great and the waiters will make you feel like a V.I.P. every time. The interior is immaculately maintained, with a view into the busy kitchen. I never go any fancier than house wine, and even that is delicious. Mains are mostly between $ 30 and $ 40, with steaks creeping upwards of $ 60 for the specialty varieties. The best part about dining at Bravo Bar.b.que is choosing the side dishes that come with the main meals. The best one is the cheddar-​glazed broccoli, cauliflower, and bacon, which is rustic and yummy. For dessert, the dark chocolate fondant is so indulgent that you’ll probably want to go home and lie down afterwards.
Not one for every night of the week if you’re on a budget, but worth a visit for a special night out!

Hotel Bravo has only ever struck me as a place for after-​work/​dinner drinks and never as a place I would spend a large portion of a night out. Still, when I’m not in the mood for silly antics and carefree dancing, I suppose Hotel Bravo would be an ideal sort of place. It’s an ideal setting for a group of people who want to sit and enjoy a few drinks and some light banter after a hard day’s work. This place strikes me as more of a «conversationalist place» without the air of snobbery that comes with some cocktail bars where only a dull whisper is acceptable.
Bravo has a great range of beer on tap and some wild cocktail concoctions I have never seen before, so maybe I’m a little naïve in my opinion of it being a more controlled environment. Still, I feel it’s a place to sling back a few beers, have a chat with mates, and either push on to a wilder destination or call it a night. Either way, it makes for a pretty good pit stop you can just wander in to along Brunswick Street.