It’s serving a 50-bottle wine list and cocktails (including a martini menu) matched to a menu of British-inspired comfort food. You just need to find it first.
A wine bar, serving good food, in the middle of the Brisbane CBD. When George Curtis and James Horsfall say there was a gap in the market for Milquetoast, it takes you a moment to realise they are, in fact, right.
There are wine joints of note that serve good grub: La Lune in South Brisbane, or Bar Francine and Snack Man in West End and Fortitude Valley, respectively (though the latter two arguably veer towards a proper restaurant experience), but not much in the city centre.
It reflects a bar scene that can sometimes trail behind the southern cities. The quality is right there – walk into a Death & Taxes or a Savile Row, and you’ll be served a killer cocktail – but the variety of venues and concepts sometimes isn’t.
“There’s definitely a hunger in Brisbane for people to come to different styles of bars,” Curtis says. “We’ve a lot of gin bars and cocktail bars, but something like Before and After [an amaro-focused bar Curtis opened off George Street in 2022] has proven that people are willing to try something different, as long as it’s done well.
“Wine bars have been done, right? But we’re not just a wine bar. Having this kind of branding and doing the kind of food we do and the drinks we do – in a garage.”
Yes, in a garage.
You’ll find Milquetoast hidden down the end of a laneway opposite the Hilton Hotel on Elizabeth Street. It makes for a neat two-hander with Alice, Emma and Peter Hollands’ dive bar just next door.
Inside, it’s homely rather than fancy, Curtis and Horsfall scouring Facebook Marketplace for vintage timber tables, and leather and velvet chairs and bar stools. A bar and open kitchen runs down one side of the venue, and exposed girders are lined with wine bottles.
“Operators get caught up in needing lots of money and fancy decor, but you don’t need that to open a bar,” Curtis says. “It’s just about creating a welcoming atmosphere.”
Horsfall says people forget that “hospitality is actually about hospitality”. “You just need to offer them the right thing and execute that correctly.”
Wine, understandably, takes centre stage here. Horsfall has put together a 50-bottle list that covers Australian and international drops and focuses on small producers, grower champagnes, limited allocations and the like.
“It’s always got to be quality first,” Horsfall says. “Local is great but if the local stuff isn’t as good as something you can get further away, you should always reward quality. That’s the ethos behind the wine.”
For cocktails, venue manager Aidan Perkins has written a list that focuses on higher-end spirits. There’s also a martini menu that each month will showcase a different distillery (at opening, it’s Full Circle Spirits from Adelaide Hills) and presents house interpretations on dry, wet and dirty martinis, as well as a retro riff on an espresso martini, a mini martini, and a martini highball served with tonic.
Elsewhere, there’s a house cocktail list that includes the venue’s signature Caspar Milquetoast (Four Pillars rare dry gin, lacto-fermented rhubarb, sparkling wine, vanilla, and a clarified milk-bread soda).
As Curtis and Horsfall promise, though, food is just as important.
Markus Ravik
Chef Solenn d’Heilly (formerly chef de partie at Bennelong, at the Sydney Opera House) is cooking seasonal produce that taps into a revitalised interest in British food (Curtis is from England, as are Horsfall’s parents). It will change regularly, but the launch menu features devilled eggs with bacon and leek cream, a cured fish crumpet with curry aioli, Urban Valley mushrooms on toast, and Cumberland sausages with puy lentils and gremolata.
“Matching the food and the wine, we have a diverse by-the-glass list,” Horsfall says. “We have a Tasmanian riesling by Anim that almost feels like it’s made to go with the crumpet … but I’ve always taken the approach: if you’re busting to crack open a grenache [with that dish], I’m not going to stop you. You pair the wine to the person first and the food comes after that.”
That lack of pretence is perhaps the defining trait of Milquetoast. It’s right there in the name, a term for “weak” or “timid” that originated in the US.
“It’s meant to be a self-deprecating assessment of us,” Curtis says. “We’re just two guys opening a small bar against the backdrop of a city that tends to be dominated by big groups. So we’re just taking the piss out of ourselves a little bit. We don’t mind those groups being around if they do cool stuff and treat their staff well.”
“But if you have a top-heavy scene,” Horsfall interjects, “and you don’t have that texture underneath, it can sometimes feel a little soulless. We’re trying to help fill that out, really.”
Tue-Thu 4pm-12am, Fri-Sat 1pm-12am (this Friday and Saturday, the bar is operating 4pm-12am)
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.