I still remember the night I convinced a bunch of friends to come check out Gerard’s Bistro. It was 2012, Ben Williamson had just taken out Brisbane’s Best New Restaurant, and I’d been talking the place up for weeks. Our booking had somehow been cancelled before we’d even arrived.

What followed was two hours standing around in the cold while the restaurant scrambled to sort things out, food arriving in fits and starts across another hour, and a group of friends who were cold, hungry and increasingly skeptical of my restaurant recommendations (how embarrassing for me??)

And then Williamson’s wagyu brisket landed on the table; carved table-side, pulled apart and served with flatbread and yoghurt; and we forgot about all of it. It was creative, different, and deeply, seriously good.

All was forgiven..

Save for a ten year stint living overseas, we’ve been eating Ben Williamson’s food ever since.

Fast forward well more than a decade, and Williamson has done something far more ambitious than run a great restaurant. He built Agnes; a wood-fired inspiration at 22 Agnes Street in Fortitude Valley that operates on a principle that sounds almost confrontational in 2025: no gas, no electricity, just fire. Different woods for different dishes; ironbark for heat, apple wood and cherry wood for smoke, olive wood for flavour. 

The kitchen produces extraordinary food without the safety net of a conventional setup, and the food is all the better for it.

The accolades have followed accordingly. 

Agnes took out Gourmet Traveller’s National Restaurant of the Year in 2023, making it only the second Queensland restaurant in the award’s 44-year history to claim that title (the first was E’cco Bistro back in 1997). 

Williamson was named Gourmet Traveller’s Chef of the Year. Queensland Restaurant of the Year in both 2021 and 2023. Best Wine List in Queensland three consecutive years. 

To top this off (and something we only discovered after our most recent visit), Agnes ranks at #20 on the 2026 World’s 101 Best Steak Restaurants list. 

Crazy that we’ve been three times and we haven’t even ordered a steak yet.

This was our third visit, and it was meant to be four of us; we’d planned to bring along a couple of friends who hadn’t been before, but one fell ill and cancelled at the last moment. 

Thankfully, we were able to easily adjust the booking; and it became a default date night mid-week…. A Mid-week booking means nothing at Agnes, the dining room fills and stays full.

The space is dark and almost brooding; exposed concrete, black surfaces, low lighting that makes everything feel a little more intimate than it the room should allow for. Two open fire kitchen areas run along the back wall, and you can watch the whole operation from most seats in the room. 

We were seated on the bench along one of the side walls; the Girl on the chair side, me on the bench with a clear sightline across the room as it filled up around us. There are bench tables through the middle of the room as well, and the layout creates an energy that builds steadily from the first sitting to a room in full swing.

It would be remiss of me to not mention the music; which was funky, vibey, the kind of tunes that makes you feel like you stumbled into somewhere genuinely cool rather than somewhere that is trying to be cool. 

We couldn’t spot where the speakers were emanating the music; we could feel the bass through the bench seats before we could locate its source. After some investigation: our waiter let us know that some of the speakers are built into the underside of the bench seats. So you don’t just hear the music, as much as absorb it. It is a small detail that says a great deal about how carefully the whole experience has been thought through.

Agnes is built for sharing; the whole menu is designed around the table helping itself. This creates a particular problem for the Girl and I, because we are, by our very nature, deeply committed to occupying our own plates. 

We have spent years at restaurants with a clear and non-negotiable policy against cross-plate interference. On those rare occasions we’ve had to split the food, we fall back onto a foolproof system we’ve developed over time; one person divides the dish, the other person chooses their half; got a serious workout this particular night, because every single dish we ordered arrived in the middle of the table.

We started with the potato sourdough, smoked cultured butter; a thick-crusted loaf with a chewy, well-structured crumb and enough cultured butter on the side to slather on generously. Simple, well executed, and an interesting way to open a meal built around fire.

Next was the cold smoked venison, beetroot, walnut, radicchio, horseradish and it set the tone for everything that followed. The venison was rich and luxurious, with a light smoky undertone that announced itself by stealth. The radicchio leaves provided a bitter, leafy bite that was offset perfectly by the sweetness of the beetroot, and the horseradish came through cleanly at the end. The walnuts were there somewhere but I didn’t pick them up particularly. The Girl ate hers with a knife and fork like a sensible person. I picked up the radicchio leaves and ate the whole thing like a taco. 

Both approaches worked, but mine was less messy..

By design, our next three dishes all arrived together.

Agnes’s charred carrots, smoked labne, mandarin kosho, buckwheat has appeared on every visit we’ve made, and for good reason. The carrots are cooked over open flame until the edges char and the natural sugars caramelise; the labneh underneath is creamy and tangy, the buckwheat providing crunch and texture. It is something of a signature dish, and rightly so. The thing that still catches us out, even on the third visit, is that it arrives cold. It is a cold dish. We know this. We forget it every time. It is excellent regardless.

The grilled snap peas, celery, buttermilk green goddess, ricotta salata was the brightest thing on the table all night; those snap peas a vivid, saturated green, lightly charred and genuinely sweet, with the tart buttermilk base cutting through cleanly and the ricotta salata adding a salty, milky counterpoint. It functioned as a side dish to the duck, and it performed that role well.

And finally, with surprisingly little fanfare, the wood roasted duck, muscat grapes, burnt honey, bitter leavesarrived.  The duck for us, is the reason to book. 

More specifically, it is the reason to pre-order when you book; Agnes requires this, and if you don’t, there is a real chance you will miss out. We had pre-ordered without hesitation. What arrived was a generous portion of wood-roasted duck with the skin rendered and crisped by the open flames; the flesh cooked to a gamey, sweet perfection that is simply not achievable on a gas burner. At the bottom of the bowl: a burnt honey sauce, dark and complex, perfectly calibrated to the strength of the duck without overwhelming it. This is what fire cooking is actually all about; not the theatre of flames, but the flavour transformation that happens when protein meets smoke and sustained, primal heat. 

We had our fill. That doesn’t always happen with duck.

We finished with a single pear tart tatin, Maleny milk ice cream, shared between us (see; everything shared for this meal). The pastry was crisp and sticky in the way only a properly executed tatin achieves; the pear a gentler, sweeter choice than the traditional apple, the Maleny milk ice cream doing exactly what it should against a hot tart. The temperature contrast made each spoonful better than the last. A lovely way to close out the meal.

Throughout the evening the service moved with precision; relaxed and friendly without hovering, professional without stiffness. The floor team knew when to appear and when to leave well enough alone. You stop noticing good service because it simply works, and that’s the highest compliment you can give it.

Fire cooking is genuinely hot right now globally. 

Having also eaten a few times at Burnt Ends in Singapore (which is incredible); the Michelin-starred wood-fire institution that has helped put that approach on the world’s radar; it is clear that Agnes belongs in that conversation of greatness. 

The philosophy is the same: strip cooking back to its most primal element and let the food do the talking. Williamson has been doing this since before it was fashionable, and Agnes shows what happens when a chef has the confidence and the accolades to prove the approach works.

Three visits in and Agnes continues to exceed expectations. Even at $300 for two, the experience feels like a bargain for the quality of fire-cooked excellence you receive. 

If you’re looking for a dinner that lives up to its reputation, this is it. 

We’re already planning a return; however next time we’ll come with friends, and we’re finally gonna order the steak! 🔥