La Bodega restaurant opens in Fortitude Valley
Completely transformed the former AE Griffiths Service Station on Wickham Street; Wait until you see the courtyard.
Let’s start from the courtyard. Because if La Bodega Fortitude Valley had nothing else to do, at least it would have this enticing outdoor dining area.
Walk through the open revolving door entrance to the restaurant’s heritage-listed Spanish Mission-style façade, which began life as the AE Griffiths Service Station in 1929, past the block-fronted bar and semi-open kitchen, turn right, left, right and you’re there.
This is the ultimate kind of accommodation, with its sense of discovery and towering red terra cotta walls, capable of transporting you a million miles from Wickham Street.
But it turns out La Bodega does other things very well, too; a no-frills, wallet-friendly approach to Mexican street food that has won over locals, especially those who regularly pack the pocket-sized original East Brisbane restaurant. Sometimes, owners Anna Brobjer and Tim Glasson turn over 45 seats five times in one night.
You wonder: Are these the much larger, better-equipped facilities that La Bodega always deserved? Brobjer doesn’t think so. Not exactly anyway.
“I don’t want to move away from East Brisbane,” he says. “When we were moving here, some people reached out to us and asked if we were closing.
“I remember painting [that restaurant] People were walking by and saying: ‘Good luck, nothing works there.’ But it worked. We did something for that community, but that community contributed a lot to us.
“So we’re not giving up on that. That’s very important to me. Maybe it’s them having access to more local Mexican restaurants again,” Brobjer says, referring to the restaurant’s popularity.
He and Glasson handled much of the design and fit-out of the Fortitude Valley restaurant themselves, painting the facade in the same eye-catching terra cotta hue and building out the courtyard with booth seating that makes up most of La Bodega’s 120 seats.
The food is pretty much the same as in East Brisbane, with starters, tacos, platters and salads.
To start, there are fried chicken wings tossed in chipotle sauce; charbroiled sweet corn with queso, house crema and smoked spice; and a three-cheese quesadilla with house cream and salsa roja sauce.
Larger plates include a burrito (which you can order as a bowl), nachos, and an enchilada, all ordered with a protein of your choice.
Still, diners tend to flock to East Brisbane for tacos, and especially chef Alejandra Mendoza’s beef birria tacos, which have become a minor Instagram sensation. Elsewhere, there are pork pibil, chicken, carne asada, fish and mushroom tacos; all served on lightly warmed Dona Cholita tortillas from Murwillumbah (which Mexican-born Mendoza swears by).
The drink menu is currently the same at both venues and includes a tight mix of local and Mexican beers, cool, biodynamic-angle wines, and a cocktail menu that leans heavily on twisted margaritas. But Glasson started his career as a bartender and plans to use the larger bar at his Fortitude Valley restaurant to stock a wider range of drinks and offer a jalapeño spritz, a few mix-ins and some new boozy slushies.
“This all started because we were approached from a different area and they attacked us hard,” says Brobjer. “They kept cutting the rent, saying we could leave after a year, and eventually we thought maybe we should sign a contract.
“I thought: ‘Maybe I should look at what’s there, and if after looking we still want this other place, that’s only fair.’ But that’s how I found this place. I woke Tim up and we were making a business plan until 3am. We called the rental agencies at 7am and made an offer at 2pm.
“It was meant to be.”
Open daily 11.30-15.00, 17.00-late
608 Wickham Street, Fortitude Valley, 1300 836 077
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at the Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-in-chief at Broadsheet Brisbane and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among others.
