Donna Chang
Behind the sandstone columns of a 1914 former government savings bank in Brisbane's centre, one of the city's grander dining rooms trades in modern Cantonese and Sichuan cooking. The heritage bones, all soaring ceilings, ornate mouldings and tall windows, have been softened with a pastel palette and hanging greenery, a marriage of antiquity and modernity that has made the space a default for celebrations. Dim sum is the calling card: bamboo steamers of dumplings, custard tarts, spring rolls and bao carried out for long weekend yum cha, alongside a broader menu that ranges from delicate Cantonese seafood to the deeper heat of Sichuan. Part of a Brisbane hospitality group, the operation is polished rather than homespun, and its pacing suits a set-piece lunch or an occasion dinner more than a quick bowl. What lingers is the sense of theatre: a banking hall built to impress now given over to steamer towers and pots of tea, its formality warmed by the food rather than diminished by it. For visitors it doubles as one of the better-kept interiors in the CBD; for locals it has become the room you book when the meal needs to matter.