Alli Forde

Brisbane is spoilt for choice when it comes to the rich, vibrant flavours of Indian cuisine. Whether you're craving authentic South Indian dosas, fiery North Indian curries, smoky tandoori meats, or lip-smacking street food, we’ve got the place for you.   With so many incredible spots across town, Time Out enlisted a local food expert to curate the ultimate guide to the best Indian restaurants in Brisbane. From beloved family-run institutions like Taj Bengal and the vibrant Jaipur Palace to high-spirited local favourites like Curryville, these are the top spots to book for your next Indian feast. 🥩 The best steaks in Brisbane🍣 The best Japanese in Brisbane

Ramen, sushi, okonomiyaki, gyoza... Japan's food culture is a phenomenon, and luckily, Brisbane is blessed with some of the best Japanese restaurants in Australia. From bustling izakayas and casual yakitori joints to high-end omakase dining, there are plenty of places to make your dreams of moving to Tokyo come true. To help you find your next great meal, Time Out tasked local food writers with compiling the ultimate guide to the best Japanese restaurants in Brisbane. Whether you're celebrating a special occasion, grabbing a fast, affordable lunch, or sitting down for an intimate multi-course feast, these are the top spots to book right now. 🥘 The best Indian eats in Brisbane🍽 The best restaurants in Brisbane

Brisbane’s Italian dining scene has long been among the best in Australia – and it just keeps getting better. From handmade pasta and woodfired pizzas to fresh local seafood, the River City’s top trattorias are serving up top-notch Italian fare. To help you find your next great meal, Time Out Editor Melissa Woodley has teamed up with local foodies to bring you this guide to the best Italian restaurants in Brisbane. Whether you’re chasing a hearty ragù inside a cosy neighbourhood joint, a refined pasta feast at a long-standing favourite, or alfresco prawn linguine at a stylish spot with five-star views, these are the top Brisbane Italian spots to book right now.  🍕 The best pizza in Brisbane🥩 The best steak in Brisbane

More new hotels in Australia mean more excuses to book a holiday, right? From fancy five-star stays and long-awaited international debuts to retro motel revivals and intimate coastal hideaways, Australia's staycation scene is booming – giving travellers plenty of reason to test-drive the latest openings. After all, who doesn’t want to be the first to swan-dive into a crisp king bed or wrap themselves in a robe so fresh it hasn’t yet seen a room-service tray? This year, Australia has welcomed a bumper wave of new stays, from Avani Mooloolaba Beach – the Sunshine Coast's first major hotel opening in almost 40 years – to the beloved Ardour Lilianfels in the Blue Mountains and Broome's refreshed Pinctada Hotel. Looking ahead, our Editor Melissa Woodley has her eyes set on the new Treehouse Hotel (anchoring Adelaide’s $600 million Central Market precinct), and the Hilton Palm Cove Cairns Resort & Spa, set to open in early 2027. Scroll on for the full roll call of Australia’s best new hotels – and the ones set to open in the coming months/years. 🌴 The best resorts & lodges in Australia⛺️ The best free campgrounds in Australia

Blessed with sunshine for most of the year, Brisbane is made for outdoor living. Whether you're planning a family day out, searching for a kid's playground or simply craving a dose of fresh air, Brissy is home to some of Australia's most beautiful green spaces. You can wander beneath towering fig trees, cycle along scenic riverfront paths, let the kids loose at world-class playgrounds or discover tranquil gardens tucked away from the city buzz. Time Out's editors have rounded up the very best parks in Brisbane, where a relaxed atmosphere, great accessibility, convenient amenities and those unexpected ah-ha moments make each visit memorable. Yep, your hunt for the best parks in Brisbane ends here. Editor’s favourite parks in Brisbane 🧒🏼 Best for kids: 7th Brigade Park 🧺 Best for picnics: Roma Street Parklands 🚲 Best for a day out: South Bank Parklands 🏞️ Best for gorgeous views: Kangaroo Point Cliffs Park  ☀️ The best playgrounds in Brisbane🥾 The best hikes near Brisbane

It's no secret that we Aussies love a good pub. Whether you like bonding over schnitties at Trivia Tuesday or downing pints with a hearty Sunday roast, pub culture has something for everyone, every day of the week.  To honour these cornerstones of Australian social life, we've gathered recommendations from our national team of writers (and readers) to bring you this list of the best pubs in Australia's capital cities. These legendary venues have it all: perfect parmigianas, exceptional local beers, friendly staff, breezy beer gardens, live music and unbeatable weekly specials. Find your nearest watering hole with our ultimate guide to the best pubs in Australia (organised by state). For more about how we curate our reviews and guides, see our editorial guidelines. 🍹 The best rooftop bars in Australia🍷 The best wineries in Australia

A truly delicious burger is easily one of life’s greatest pleasures, and Australia is teeming with top-notch options, most of which fall comfortably into that hits-the-spot territory. A classic burger’s simplicity – a pillowy bun, a juicy patty, a slice of melted cheese, some salad and a drizzle of sauce – makes it hard to mess up. The flip side, however, is that it also makes finding the best burgers in Australia a meaty challenge. Time Out’s hungry team of local food writers have bravely put their jaws and stomachs on the line (in the name of exceedingly difficult research, you understand) to compile this list of Australia's best burgers. We’ve eaten our way from coast to coast to bring you the ultimate guide, telling you exactly what to order at each venue. So whether you're hunting for a classic American cheeseburger, a gourmet Wagyu creation or an innovative plant-based number, here are the absolute best burgers in Australia, ranked in no particular order. Now it’s up to you to crown the true buns of glory.  Editor's favourite burgers in Australia: 🍔 Best global icon: Café Margaret, Sydney ⭐️ Best gourmet: Bread & Bone, Adelaide 😋 Best cheeseburger: Charrd, Melbourne For more about how we curate our reviews and guides, see our editorial guidelines. 🥧 The best pies in Australia🌭 The best sausage rolls🍕 The best pizzas in Australia

Brisbane’s best pubs perfectly mirror the city itself: laid-back, endlessly charming and full of surprises. These local landmarks aren’t just spots for a quick pint – they’re destinations where craft brews, comforting menus, authentically Queensland architecture and good vibes collide. Whether you're after riverside brews, sun-soaked beer gardens or a Sunday roast that feels like a warm hug from your nan, Time Out's local experts have found the perfect pub for you. Now, cancel your 7am Pilates, call it “fieldwork” and dive into our guide to the best pubs in Brisbane. Monday? Never heard of her.  Editor's favourite pubs in Brisbane: 🎸 Best for craft beer: Felons Brewing Co 🇬🇧 Best for British fare: Hope and Anchor 🍻 Best for wooden keg beer: Breakfast Creek 🏳️‍🌈 Best for events: The Wickham Hotel For more about how we curate our reviews and guides, see our editorial guidelines. 🍹 The best rooftop bars in Brisbane🌮 The best places to eat in Brisbane

Ah, food. Glorious, glorious food. If there’s one thing Australians will happily cross state lines (or book flights) for, it’s a very good meal – ideally paired with an equally excellent drink in hand. In 2026, the festival calendar is once again stacked. Nearly every state, city and regional town now has a signature food and drink celebration, many built around what grows best in their own backyards: cool-climate pinot in Victoria, seafood pulled straight from the ocean in Queensland, tropical flavours in the Top End and produce so fresh it barely makes it off the farm. These events bring together the country’s best chefs, winemakers, farmers, brewers and producers – often in places you’d happily plan a long weekend around anyway.  So, whether you’re a wine wanker, a seafood seeker, a beer buff or a truffle hunter, here are the food and drink festivals in Australia that turn a good weekend away into the whole point of the trip. Editors' favourite food and drink festivals in Australia: 🍷 Best for wine lovers: Orange F.O.O.D Week, NSW 🍽️ Best for serious foodies: Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, VIC 🍜 Best for something new: Darwin International Laksa Festival, NT 🍽️ The best restaurants in Australia🎸 The best music festivals in Australia

Dining out? In this economy? Miraculously, Brisbane still has spots where you can eat exceptionally well without having to sell a kidney (i.e. for under $20). If you’re in the mood for a bougie sandwich that feels like a payday treat, a sushi fix that won’t disappoint or late-night pancakes that taste like redemption, our savvy food writers have tried and tested all of the best cheap eats in Brisbane to bring you this ultimate list. No sad desk lunches. No reheated regret. Just really good food that won’t require an existential crisis at the cash register. ☕️ The best cafés in Brisbane🍽 The best restaurants in Brisbane

Tasmania is arguably Australia's most underrated destination when it comes to adventure. The small southernmost state's rugged landscapes, crystal-clear seas, fresh farm produce and cool-climate wine regions make it a must-visit for nature lovers, thrill-seekers and foodies alike. Beyond extraordinary dining experiences and the world-famous Museum of Old and New Art, 40 per cent of Tasmania's land is reserved as national parks and World Heritage wilderness. A zippy 20-minute drive from any of the state’s major cities, Hobart and Launceston, will see you walking in the bush, biking down a spectacular mountain trail or lounging on a secluded beach. Here's our pick of the best things to do on your next trip to Tasmania. Editors' favourite things to do in Tasmania: 🏔️ Best for adventure: Cradle Mountain 🚞 Best for relaxation: West Coast Wilderness Railway 🍄 Best for foodies: Mushroom foraging at Tunnel Hill 🌎 The best places to visit in Tasmania🚗 The best day trips from Hobart

If you need proof that Brisbane’s subtropical humidity is a blessing, not a curse, start with a rooftop spritz. This city was practically built for golden-hour drinking – all pastel skies, warm air off the river, and the occasional cockatoo cutting through your skyline shot. From poolside lounges with infinity pools to Riviera-style terraces and jungle-topped breweries, the best rooftop bars in Brisbane make a solid case for living life above sea level. And as Time Out writers who spend a frankly concerning amount of time researching where to eat and drink next (purely for journalism, of course), we’ve narrowed it down to the ones that actually live up to the view. Editor’s favourite rooftop bars in Brisbane 🏙️ Best views: Joey's 🍸 Best cocktails: Above Rooftop and Bar  💎 Best hidden gem: Ooh La La Bar 🍹 More of our favourite bars in Brisbane🌮 The best places to eat in Brisbane🌳 All the best things to do in Brisbane

A good winery visit is only partly about the wine. There’s the view, the lunch and the patch of lawn that starts looking particularly fun for rolling down after your third glass. Australians clearly have some thoughts on the matter. More than 8,000 people cast votes in the 2027 Halliday Wine Companion People’s Choice Award, which names the country’s favourite winery experience.  McLaren Vale’s Down The Rabbit Hole winery took out the 2027 People’s Choice Award, with voters particularly taken with its “incredible social atmosphere”, thoughtful service, scenic views and value for money – stuff that has less to do with what’s in the glass than how fun it feels to keep filling it up.  Unlike the main Halliday Wine Companion Awards, where experts blind taste wines and concern themselves with the serious business of things like vintages, the People’s Choice Award is about the whole kit and caboodle – the food, the setting, the view – you get the idea. Photograph: SuppliedGolden Times at Down the Rabbit Hole Down the Rabbit Hole has this particular formula figured out. Founded by husband-and-wife team Domenic and Elise Palumbo, the winery produces small-batch wines from organic and biodynamic vineyards. There are sprawling lawns, woodfired pizzas, cheeseboards, live music and a converted double-decker bus, plus Fiore, its in-house restaurant serving a seasonal Italian set menu. You could taste a few wines and be on your way, but that would require leaving. South Australia absolute

Australia is expensive, alarmingly far from everything and home to several things that want to kill you. It is also, apparently, one of the best places on Earth to raise a family. As an American who moved to Brisbane and had two children in rapid succession, I can confirm that both things can be true. Australia placed 21st in the Rumavi Global Relocation Index’s 2026 ranking of the best countries for families, with a score of 68.9 out of 100. 21st may not sound like a cause for national celebration (particularly when New Zealand came 12th), but the index assessed 192 countries. That puts Australia among the top ten per cent worldwide, ahead of South Korea, Spain, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom.  Estonia took the top spot, followed by Taiwan, Czechia and Lithuania: a list that raises several questions, mainly… should we all be moving to Tallinn? Rumavi arrived at this by assessing countries across 24 metrics, covering financial conditions, health and liveability, safety and stability, and the practical realities of putting down roots. For families, street safety carried the most weight, followed by education, cost of living and healthcare.  Of course, no index can capture the full emotional and logistical chaos of raising children in a particular place. The things that matter most are often the hardest to quantify: the quality of your local playground, the proximity of willing grandparents, or the psychological tol

Australia entered the castle-building game relatively late. By the time its colonial governments began erecting fortresses, Europe had spent centuries experimenting with towers, battlements and increasingly elaborate ways to pour things on intruders. The Australian version was more pragmatic: coastal batteries, underground tunnels and large guns aimed at the sea, constructed in anticipation of foreign navies that mostly failed to arrive. These monuments to defensive anxiety have now been assembled alongside thousands of their international counterparts on Castlemap, a free interactive atlas charting 7,093 castles, fortresses, palaces and ruins across 141 countries. The experience is dangerously simple. Open the map, select a pin and receive a photograph, exact location and concise history of the building in question, plus a founding date where one has been documented.   Photograph: Steve Ledeme via UnsplashFort Denison Australia contributes a modest ten fortresses, eight of which have documented founding dates. Its highest-ranked entry is Fort Denison, the tiny fortified island floating in Sydney Harbour between the Opera House and Garden Island. Known to the Eora people as Muddawahnyuh and later nicknamed Pinchgut, the rocky outcrop was once used as a penal site before being fortified from the 1840s. Its round sandstone Martello tower and low defensive walls now look almost decorative, giving the impression less of a military stronghold than a particularly feudal-looking w

Kirra had been popping up in my algorithm for months, thanks to a cluster of new openings and a growing buzz around this tiny pocket at the southern end of the Gold Coast. It was just enough breadcrumbs to make me suspicious that something special was brewing, so I packed up the car, bribed my children with Pocky sticks and drove down from Brisbane to have a looksy for myself.  From the moment we arrived, the difference from the rest of the Goldie felt obvious – no towering hotel stacks or chaotic main drag teeming with tourists in neon rashies clinging to their melting soft-serves. Instead, it had the easygoing nature of a place where people actually live: young parents pushing prams, kids scootering along the flat beachfront boardwalk, and locals doing their usual coffee and sunrise routine. Where Surfers and Broadbeach lean into the Gold Coast’s signature glitz and grit, Kirra is disarmingly low-key – a surf village with some scruff.  Photograph: City of Gold Coast There’s no shortage of ways to stretch a morning out here. If you’re partial to a wander, the whole Kirra-to-Coolangatta boardwalk is one of the prettiest ocean promenades in Australia. Each morning, we’d collect a coffee (or breakfast gelato) from whichever beach-adjacent café had the shortest line and follow the curve of the coastline, stopping at a playground every 11 metres. The strip attracts an eclectic cast of characters: families burning off morning energy, hyper-jacked Gold Coast joggers and retirees

I’m standing on Brisbane’s Northshore at 9am with a toddler dangling from each arm, about to spend the next hour chasing a fictional rabbit through a 4,000-square-metre pavilion. Such is the gravitational pull of Bluey – the animated juggernaut that’s secretly a parenting manual disguised as a cartoon. If you live with kids under five, chances are the Heelers are probably part of the family. The theme song plays on loop in your head. “Wackadoo!” might slip uninvited into conversation. And every now and again, a seven-minute episode about growing up too fast will obliterate you while you’re just trying to fold the laundry. All of it is set against the backdrop of Brisbane, and every episode is peppered with familiar local details: purple jacarandas, CityCats gliding down the river and old Queenslanders with wraparound verandas. And now, the Heelers’ world exists IRL.  Photograph: Supplied | Bluey's World Brisbane At Northshore Pavilion, fans can step into Bluey’s World Brisbane – a world-first attraction dedicated to the beloved blue heeler, complete with life-size rooms, games from the show and more. We checked it out so you know what to expect from your first visit. Mission: find Floppy Our adventure at Bluey’s World Brisbane begins, appropriately, with a quest. We’re greeted by Rhonda, the garden gnome, who announces the day’s challenge: Bingo’s beloved stuffed bunny, Floppy, has gone missing (classic Floppy). Our job is to bring her home. Under Rhonda’s chaotic leaders