Welcome to Sidecar No Sugar, a weekly Boothby briefing about Brisbane bars and the people, work and creativity behind them. (You can sign up to get it in your inbox each week, right here.) This week, I speak to Mikey Pattison about his drinks for Fortitude Valley’s newest restaurant and bar Never Enough.
If you have info the Brisbane bar community should know, please email me contact@beccawang.com.au or send me a message via Instagram (@supper.partying).
If you find yourself on the streets of Brisbane past 10pm, a tumbleweed might pass you by. On weeknights, you can hear a pedestrian crossing go off two blocks over. There’s many things going for our little big town — high quality independent venues with passionate, knowledgeable staff and great drink programs — but the late night scene is almost non-existent. Many venues advertise themselves as ‘open late’ but close their kitchen just after 9pm. If you’re out after then, the options for food are limited to 7-11 sandwiches and kebabs.
We all want more late-night restaurants and wine bars but two important (and potentially offensive) questions I have to pose are:
- Will Brisbanians be willing to adopt a more European-style dining nature to justify these venues operating past midnight?
- And does Brisbane deserve more late night dining yet?
Crowbar owners Trad Nathan and Tyla Dombroski think so.
Nathan and Dombroski’s newly formed group The Long Lunch Group are bringing late-night small plates and vinyls to the heritage Fortitude Valley space Apothecaries Hall on Ann Street. The venue is called ‘Never Enough’, aptly relevant to the state of Brisbane’s late-night dining, and set to open this Saturday 28 March. The split-level space includes an outdoor area and balcony that looks over Bakery Lane — perfect for people watching and long lunching.
Never Enough’s drinks program is overseen by general manager Mikey Pattison. For the first time, he’s letting the food offering and a (more) refined guest experience drive his drinks, a different process to the live music venues and dive bars he’s run before. Pattison’s experience, staunch belief in simple classics, and keen interest in vermouth and amari will translate uniquely to the conventional restaurant cocktail menu — an aspect Brisbane restaurants tend to overlook.
BECCA WANG: How are the drinks shaping up for Never Enough?
MIKEY PATTINSON: Wine sits at the centre of the experience for the venue but the cocktails extend from the same place, as in everything is made to complement the food. Never Enough is based around the things that we love – which for Trad and Tyla is wine. The cocktail list is looking at about 12 [drinks], kind of tight, but very much tailored to the food and atmosphere and the arc of an evening out.
BECCA WANG: Can you elaborate on what you mean by the arc?
MIKEY PATTINSON: Instead of structuring a cocktail menu by spirit category or flavour profile, we’ve based it around the rhythm of how a guest would experience the venue. For example, phase one is called golden hour. The first drinks for the evening — the spritzes, the aperitivi, low ABV, the effervescence — drinks that are designed to wake up the palate and get you settled in for a night. Phase two is during dinner, at the table. The drinks are designed to sit alongside the food — wine-forward, savoury, structured, like if you’re having oysters or charcuterie, the drinks will still hold their own. And the last phase is after dark, where you’ve had your meal, the plates are cleared and it’s more of a slower sipping style — dark, bitter stir-downs.
BECCA WANG: That intention is nice. I think many people who don’t know much about cocktails just order whatever they usually order and that’s not always the best thing to drink with food. How elaborate are the cocktails themselves, from a prep perspective?
MIKEY PATTINSON: I’d say in the mid-range. The previous venues I’ve worked at and still operate within the group and they all juxtapose each other. I also oversee Crowbar, which is a 600-capacity live music venue so the prep at that venue is minimal. Everything is served in plastic and it’s too loud to explain anything to the customers, whereas everything at Never Enough is more refined. We’re preserving ingredients and fat-washing vermouth for Martinis. Nothing too crazy with syrups. It’s about the key products that deserve to be there.
BECCA WANG: Brisbane is still yet to commit to more late night nightlife. Is there anything you hope this venue can bring out of diners and drinkers?
MIKEY PATTINSON: I’ve been working in hospitality around the Valley or the CBD for about 16 years and you always see a lot of venues say they’re late night dining but the kitchen shuts at ten. So we are trying to push midnight, 1am and hopefully the public will understand that we’ll be here serving food late. A lot of the issues with the lack of a late night dining scene is to do with legislation, costs and compliance. The whole emphasis of Never Enough is to encourage late night culture. One more round. We want you to sit there and stay longer and enjoy yourself. And if you’re there for a late night, you can be sitting here until midnight and you can still order the majority of the menu.
BECCA WANG: A few bars have closed recently that were in rather untapped locations. How are you feeling about the location of Never Enough?
MIKEY PATTINSON: Crowbar took over the old Zoo space, which was a live music venue for 30 years before we came on board. It’s a lovely heritage space. And fortunately, the landlord is also the landlord of the new space and he’s very focused on bringing the right people into his spaces and trying to make sure they highlight the food and beverage culture in Fortitude Valley. Never Enough’s space is probably one of the most stunning heritage buildings in this area. Hopefully we can reactivate it into a really nice late night venue that creates an environment of its own for punters. Say if you’re seeing a show at Crowbar, you could have dinner at Never Enough and then go over or vice versa. It’s a space for post show or pre show. Brisbane is a little bit different to other cities. Location is very much key because everything is so packed into these precincts so people don’t really venture far out.
BECCA WANG: Where are the bars actually situated in the venue?
MIKEY PATTINSON: There’s two bars in the venue — when you walk through the door, there’s a little bar that flows into the large kitchen downstairs. There’s another bar upstairs which is connected to the cold kitchen and a back bar with an amazing vintage meat slicer and the chef will be behind the bar with the bartender upstairs. The cold kitchen will also service the whole restaurant. You could just sit at the bar upstairs and drink a cocktail and talk to the chef and they could be slicing meats off for you or serving you ferments and snacks.
BECCA WANG: Music is important to your venues. Tell me about the music at Never Enough.
MIKEY PATTINSON: We’re a very music oriented group, so a lot of vinyl will be played. There will be some vinyl records and a turntable behind the bar that the staff will be able to curate. The vibe is jazz, Italian disco, a bit of soul. The name of the venue is actually a nod to Turnstile’s newest album, they’re a very classic hardcore band.
The Last Word
Barry Parade Public House is closing this weekend — Sunday will be your last chance to send the bar off, which is closing after a slow summer period. “It took until early March to pick up, and by then it was too late for us,” co-owner Brennen Eaton told us here.
Never Enough are looking for bartenders — “a love for wine, cocktails, and amaro” is what they’re after. Email hello@neverenough.bar to throw your hat in the ring.
