RESTAURANT REVIEWS
Leonards Bar & Bistro is back with a new chef, a new menu and new reason for lovers of great food and cocktails to return to the city
WORDS: PHOTOGRAPHY
After months of the pandemic setting the pace, Brisbane City dining is rising back to its feet with Leonards Bar & Bistro leading the charge.
The modern bistro on Mary Street has just named acclaimed chef, Jimmy Richardson (formerly Head Chef at Gerard’s Bistro, Bridge Room, Cafe Paci, Glass Brasserie, Café Roux) their Executive Chef and foodies will be flocking to the city to experience the talent of this Glaswegian-born star.
Excitement tends to follow wherever Jimmy goes so anticipation is palpable for his launch menu from 24 February, which includes scrumptious signature dishes such as Spencer Gulf kingfish with lemon butter, yoghurt and sesame; Roasted game farm spatchcock, smoked Harrisah, yoghurt, lime and Smoked pineapple, coconut, kefir lime leaf and rum butterscotch. Diners will enjoy the informal share style small and larger plates with fish of the day and steak dishes also available to share.
Spending his formative years training in Amsterdam at Café Roux, owned by French-born culinary legends Michel and Albert Roux (the men who discovered Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White), provided Jimmy with his world-class classical education.
Subsequent years in eclectic environments ranging from his Roux-brothers alum Luke Mangan’s modern Australian Glass Brasserie and Ross Lusted’s The Bridge Room to the experimental pop-up Café Paci in Sydney’s Darlinghurst have delivered us a chef with a flawless and exceptional skill set that will see Leonards Bar & Bistro create new city standards.
To pair with the freshly launched menu, the perfect wine and cocktail list has been crafted by internationally awarded mixologist and General Manager, Marco Nunes (Canvas Bar, Papa Jack’s). There’s no-one in Brisbane more qualified or with more flare to prepare the perfect sip than Marco.
His collection of classic style cocktails made with a seasonal twist using modern techniques is incomparable. For those who love to sample the menu try a mini cocktail, a short version of a classic cocktail that means you won’t have to decide between the Martini or the Margarita, you can have both!
Marco’s cocktail list also boasts an array of incredible alcohol-free and low ABV cocktails for those who want to skip the alcohol but not the flavour as well an expertly curated selection of wines from the new and old worlds.
New Menu available from Feb 24
Leonards Bar & Bistro: 181 Mary Street, Brisbane City, Tuesday – Friday 7am – late, Saturday 4pm – late.
JIMMY RICHARDSON, EXECUTIVE CHEF
LEONARDS BAR & BISTRO, DAWN LANEWAY BAR
A broken arm at age six and spending the last of his bank account on a tattoo for said arm 17-years later were two pivotal events driving chef, Jimmy Richardson’s, stellar career.
The Glasgow-born chef, who spent his formative years training in Amsterdam at Café Roux, owned by French-born culinary legends Michel and Albert Roux (the men who discovered Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White), provided Jimmy with a world-class classical education.
But the true roots of Jimmy’s love of food came at age six when he fell off a swing and broke his arm. His mum brought him to the supermarket with her on the day he got his arm plastered and they went home to cook ricotta and spinach filo baskets together and from that moment he developed a “knack’ for cooking.
“I used to live close to my school growing up so I would go home at lunch to save money. My Mum was at work so I’d have to cook it myself and it needed to be quick so I could make it back to school on time. I would make pasta and rice dishes where all my friends were having a sandwich,” he said. “That’s when I realised, I could cook.” After leaving school at 15, a place at cooking college followed shortly afterwards and his career began.
A stint at The Regano, an old-school grand Glasgow seafood restaurant followed college, but it was his time at Brian Maule at the Chardon D’Or that really ignited Jimmy’s passion.
Owner and fellow Glaswegian, Brian Maule, had been spotted by the famous Roux brothers at an early age and anointed as Head Chef of Le Gavroche (the Roux Brother’s two-Michelin starred iconic London restaurant) at just 24-years-old. Brian also recognised the talent in Jimmy and recommended him for a job working under Albert Roux at Café Roux in Amsterdam.
Two years in Amsterdam followed as he worked his way up from Commis Chef to Junior Sous working under the culinary legend Albert Roux. When Jimmy decided to spend a year on a working holiday in Australia, Albert insisted he stay within the Roux family and sent a recommendation to Roux alum, Luke Mangan.
Jimmy worked at Mangan’s Glass Brassiere for six months then set out to see some of Australia before his planned return home. Starting in Port Douglas, where he hoped to pick up some work in the high season and make what he needed to go travelling, he decided to spend what was left in his bank account on a tattoo only to discover he had arrived three weeks too early to be employed for the season.
In what turned out to be a sliding-doors moment, Jimmy couldn’t afford to stay in Far North Queensland or go travelling so he headed back to Sydney where he could stay with a friend for free and soon after was offered a chance to get a permanent visa through acclaimed Sydney venue, Altitude at the Shangri-La.
Awards and accolades seem to follow wherever Jimmy went next. After working his way up to acting head chef at Altitude, Jimmy joined the kitchens at Café Paci and The Bridge Room. In the space of two years, he worked for two chefs that each won Good Food Guide Chef of the Year while he was there. The Bridge Room also added a third hat to its existing two hats while Jimmy was part of the kitchen.
Head Chef roles at Annata and The Tilbury Hotel preceded the Chef De Cuisine role at Sydney’s Park Hyatt Hotel until April last year when Jimmy moved to Brisbane with his wife and young son to take up a role as Head Chef at Gerard’s Bistro.
February 2022 sees Jimmy taking the reins of the kitchen at Leonards Bar & Bistro and Dawn Laneway Bar, bringing his brand of classic but contemporary cooking imbued with his rich experience in international flavours to Brisbane.
“I’d always walk past Leonards and just loved the fit-out, it just didn’t look like it belonged in Brisbane,” he said. “I knew I could do something really great with it.”
Under Jimmy’s guidance the new menu at Leonards Bar & Bistro promises to be a treat for lovers of French-inspired modern cooking.
“It will be contemporary, simple but with big flavours and lots of work going on behind the scenes to make those flavours. The plate will look clean and elegant but the flavours will be what I hope will set us apart.”
MARCO NUNES, GENERAL MANAGER
LEONARDS BAR & BISTRO, DAWN LANEWAY BAR
Being born in Portugal near the Spanish border and raised in Paris, award-winning professional, Marco Nunes, was destined to be involved in the food and wine industry.
This trilogy of geographic gastronomic greats combined with his dedicated foodie parents, who made their own wines and instilled an appreciation for fine flavours into Marco from a young age, created a love for hospitality in Marco that he has pursued around the globe.
Growing up between his family home in Portugal and an apartment in Paris where he went to school, Marco studied hospitality in the culinary capital for five years after his first dream, to play professional soccer, was scuppered by injury.
“I feel like I have been involved in food and wine for as long as I can remember, it has always been a big part of my life,” he says in his fast-talking, French-accented English.
His first job out of college was at the Marriott in Paris followed by a stint on the Champs Elysée at Latina Café where he learned speed bartending and the art of Flaring (throwing bottles).
Next stop was London where the behemoth restaurant, TGI Fridays, sharpened his skills and some time running an exclusive upmarket boutique hotel bar, No 5, off Oxford Street. Here he focussed on the art of cocktail making and it was also when he met a girl who would lead him to Brisbane in 2003.
To say Marco launched onto the scene in Brisbane with a bang is an understatement. Not only did he win the state and then national title of the Angostura Bitters Global Cocktail Challenge for his cocktail recipe and bartending skills, beating out many established names in Australia, he went on to win the global finals and was named best cocktail maker in the world!
Marco was working at Jorge on George at the time and then went on to start his own consultancy company based in Brisbane that help set up bars around Asia before establishing his own multi-awarding winning venue, Canvas Bar in 2008.
“Within three months we had won Best Bar in Queensland, Best Cocktail Menu and Australia’s Best New Bar at the Australian Bar Awards,” he said.
He sold Canvas a few years later and set up Papa Jack’s, a creole bar in Fortitude Valley, before being poached in 2012 by Allara Learning CEO and owner of Leonards Bar & Bistro, Andrew Lewis.
Andrew entrusted Marco to translate the vision for Leonards from finding the location to conceptualising what the offer would be.
“We had spoken about doing something like Leonards for many years, somewhere that had something for everyone where you could come to for morning coffee, brilliant lunches, dinner and late-night drinks with high-quality items, local produce, warm and friendly service, a traditional European bistro with a New York twist,” he said.
When he is not running Leonards and Dawn, Marco still likes to kick the soccer ball but now it’s often with his two children, Noel, 13 and Dante, 10.
“I love Brisbane and the food and dining scene is growing so fast here, I want to be a part of helping it grow,” he said.
Not many are more qualified to help chart the course of Brisbane’s restaurant scene than Marco.
