Nali Kitchen’s Angus beef brisket sandwich
It carries all the glorious nostalgia of corner carving, without any drawbacks. Here’s one of our best Brisbane sandwich discoveries yet.
Nali Kitchen is partly a result of chef Matthew Van Der Zwan’s experience, but also a reaction to it.
The Adelaide-born chef’s career has been all over the place, both geographically and professionally.
He cut his teeth in Melbourne under chefs such as Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris. He led massive hotel operations in China and Singapore at Radisson Blu Shanghai and Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel, respectively. He later returned to Australia and became head of food and beverage for the Brisbane Lions and retirement living provider TriCare.
So how did it get here, to the relatively unsafe building on Gresham Lane in the CBD?
“This road reminds me of my Melbourne years. I love being tucked away at this end of the CBD,” says Van Der Zwan. “I wanted this to be a hidden gem.
“When I first came back to Australia [in 2020]I had a burning desire to do something, but I wasn’t sure what it would be. “First I found this site, then I looked for the concept.”
So what is the concept?
Van Der Zwan has toyed with the Nali Kitchen menu since it opened (there were burgers for a while, they’re gone now) but these days it’s a simple operation organized around three proteins: Angus brisket, porchetta rolls, and lemon thyme chicken.
You can order them in packages with side dishes, salads and sauces; as a stand-alone “protein package”; or pick and choose buffet style, adding roasted vegetables, grilled potatoes, garlic rice and daily salads to your liking. This is a challenging setup.
“After being abroad and seeing good quality food in buffets in small portions with big flavors and colours, when I came back to Brisbane I saw brown food in buffets in quick service restaurants,” Van Der Zwan says.
“I wanted to build something visually colorful and appetizing.”
I love all this. This points to Van Der Zwan’s history of working in top international hotels where dining, including buffets, is taken very seriously; This is something that is not well understood in Australia.
This is Sandwich Hour, not Salad Hour, though, and things get truly magical when Van Der Zwan slaps the proteins inside the foci.
His signature is the porchetta sandwich, and that’s a cracker. But the intrusive thoughts that come to my mind every day around 11 a.m. revolve around another song, veal brisket.
Nali Kitchen’s roast beef brisket sandwich
Picture the messy, hot roast beef sandwich from your youth’s corner steakhouse, but with something sparkling in its best way.
The brisket is roasted rather than smoked (“we’re not a smokehouse and we’re not trying to be,” says Van Der Zwan), left overnight in a stock that’s kept “pretty quiet” to help its protein quality stand out. Van Der Zwan prefers Riverina Angus rump cap.
“We put it in at 3pm and take it out at 7am the next day, slice it and serve it with a simple sauce,” he says. “It’s a nice product to start with, so [let it shine].”
Cleverly, the accompaniments for all three sandwiches are the same (charred onions, arugula, salsa verde and aioli), and the focus is squarely on the quality of the meat. The whole thing is then slapped between two slices of focaccia, which are soft enough to absorb any crumbs that might try to slide off.
This thing eats like a dream.
Brisket is a relatively heavy cut of beef, partly due to the binding collagen that holds the muscles together and partly due to its inherently high fat content. And of course, Van Der Zwan doesn’t hold back on the thickness of his slice, but the 16-hour steaming leaves it juicy and tender, and the arugula and salsa greens give it a nice herbaceous finish. Everything is held together by the sweet, nutty aioli.
I get this sandwich regularly at my desk at work. There’s little mess, little fuss, just maximum satisfaction. And it doesn’t weigh your stomach down like that roast beef song from your youth; This is perhaps a testament to the quality of Van Der Zwan’s materials.
This thing is everything about nostalgia, it doesn’t disappoint.
Where to buy?
Nali Kitchen’s fried brisket sandwich isn’t cheap at $22, but the portion size makes it a good value. You can find it at 1/100 Creek Street (Gresham Lane) in Brisbane.
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.
