It might be surprising to hear, but I’ve had some pretty disappointing birthday dinners. Which probably sounds a little ridiculous given the effort the Girl and I have put into finding special places to celebrate over the years. We’ve travelled to other countries, built holidays around restaurant bookings and had some incredible meals along the way.

Just not always on my actual birthday.

3 Michelin Starred Arzak in Spain is probably the biggest example. A restaurant with an enormous reputation, a very expensive dinner, and not a thing I really liked about it. The food felt dated and ordinary, and the experience felt like a production line. Given the effort we’d made to get there (the tear-inducing business of getting out of Hong Kong during the democracy protests at the airport is a story all by itself), it was a huge disappointment.

We had fantastic meals elsewhere on that trip (notably Mugaritz and Nerua), which somehow made the birthday miss even more frustrating.

Then there was world number 26 (at the time) and 3 Star Tim Raue in Berlin, another much-anticipated birthday dinner that didn’t turn out as I’d hoped. There have been some wonderful ones too; 3* L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, 1* Andō and, of course, 1* Aulis in Hong Kong. That first birthday dinner at Aulis became my benchmark meal for every one that followed. Still, looking back over the years, picking a birthday restaurant has felt about as likely to go wrong as right.

So naturally, this year I decided to take another punt.

Attimi by Dario Manca wasn’t an entirely unknown quantity. We’d been the previous year with our buddies Fi and Kev for a midweek dinner, and there were things that showed a lot of promise. There were also some inventive combinations that didn’t really work for us; a duck liver and chocolate appearing in dessert being one that we didn’t love. I’d left thinking it was okay, without being great. Although, I felt that there was enough there to be curious about another visit, it was definitely not going to be a sure thing like a visit to my favourite Brisbane restaurant Exhibition would have been.

Also, my birthday was on a Tuesday, which limited the choice of higher-end restaurants a little. Attimi was open, the accolades had been coming, and I thought it was worth seeing how things had progressed since my original try. I normally take my birthday off work, but this year the Girl had the day off and I didn’t (I needed to save my rec days for some pending surgery). That meant a quick trip home after work to get ready, before we walked from the CBD up to Paddington. A couple of kilometres on a cooler evening was a lovely way to spend some time together before dinner.

Walking into this particular address always comes with a little nostalgia for us. Attimi is located at the original Montrachet site on Given Terrace, where we’d enjoyed some wonderful French meals before heading off to Hong Kong. We were happy to see the old site used for a new breed of fine diner.

Given Attimi’s claim to provide a Michelin-style experience in Brisbane, I wanted to look into Dario’s background to see whether it had merit. His experience in Michelin-starred kitchens began at Villa Crespi (2* when he trained there, now 3*), before taking him to Met Restaurant (2*) under Corrado Fasolato and Apsleys (1*) by Heinz Beck in London. That’s a fairly serious grounding in fine dining, and gives some substance to what Attimi is promising. It also gave us good reason to expect more than we’d experienced on our first visit.

The national recognition had been building too. Attimi had picked up Australia’s Best New Restaurant at the 2025 Restaurant & Catering Hostplus Awards for Excellence, followed by two Chef Hats and 15 points in the Australian Good Food Guide for 2026. Between that and Dario’s Michelin background, there were plenty of reasons to give it another go.

One of the things we’d questioned on our first visit was the service. Attimi describes itself as offering a Michelin-style experience, and while the staff had been friendly, we’d found it a little lackadaisical and not especially sharp. It hadn’t matched what we’d expected from a ‘Michelin’ establishment. On this visit, though, the difference was obvious. Friendly, attentive and much more on point; we never felt forgotten about or left wondering what was happening.

There were a couple of tables already taken when we arrived, and the restaurant got busier over the evening without filling completely (not unexpected for a Tuesday night.) We settled in and looked over the two tasting menus. There was a shorter option, but we chose the longer Oltre menu at $228 per person before drinks. That’s a fairly hefty price for a tasting menu in Brisbane in my book, so it meant we were expecting quite a bit from the kitchen.

Our first three bites arrived together, and the Parmigiana tart was where we started. It was surprisingly pretty, a lovely little tart with a crisp base that disappeared in a single bite. The flavour was much bigger than the size might have suggested; that familiar savoury hit of parmigiana, a little meaty and full of umami. There was a lovely lingering flavour too, so even though the tart was gone quickly, we had a little longer to enjoy it. A very good start.

The scallop crudo with potato rösti, cauliflower cream and prosciutto was a little more rustic looking. The combination of the seafood and cured meat gave it an almost surf-and-turf feel, with the finely diced scallop sitting above the rösti and the prosciutto adding a salty hit. I loved the balance of that saltiness against the scallop; there was a little sweetness in the bite, with the cauliflower cream drawing it together.

The rösti underneath gave it a little crispness against the softer elements. It might not have looked quite as refined as the tart, but it tasted amazing. We were off to a promising start, and there was still one more of the first trio to get through.

I was a little worried about the mushroom arancino. Not the flavour combination of mushrooms, rice and truffle mayonnaise, which sounded pretty appealing, but the fact that it had been shaped into a mushroom. There is a reason arancini generally arrive as balls, and I wondered whether the different thicknesses of the mushroom shape would make it difficult to cook evenly. I needn’t have worried. The outside was beautifully crisp and the rice inside was perfectly cooked, right through.

There was a lovely umami flavour, with an extra smack of truffle from the little dollop of mayonnaise at the bottom of the mushroom. That was the only thing I would have changed; I’d have loved a quenelle of the mayo on the side so I could keep dipping into it. As it was, the mayo was gone with the first bite and I still had the rest of the arancino to eat. It was delicious regardless, and I was impressed that the cooking hadn’t suffered for the presentation.

The next set of bites started with the chicken parfait, and this was one where the presentation and the eating gave me quite different impressions. Two chicken-shaped pieces held the parfait between them, and I have to admit that I thought the little chicken outlines looked a bit clumsy. I didn’t particularly love looking at it.

Once I started eating, there was much more to be happy about. The tuile outside had a lovely crunch against the smooth, creamy parfait, which was strongly flavoured with just a little sweetness. Coca-Cola jelly and quinoa were listed on the menu, but it was the combination of that creamy filling and the crisp casing that really worked for me. A well-balanced bite, even if I wasn’t convinced by the chicken imagery.

The savoury saffron doughnut with stracciatella and porcini was much prettier. It looked as though it should have been sweet, but the menu had already prepared us for something different. What I particularly liked was the warmth; the doughnut was actually warm when we ate it, and had a much denser texture than the light doughnut I might normally expect.

That density was a positive here. It gave the bite a little substance, with subtle saffron and porcini flavours coming through as we ate. Nothing was particularly overpowering, but there was enough flavour to linger on the palate for a little while afterward. Warm, savoury and really quite delightful.

The last of this trio was a chickpea waffle with veal, tonnato sauce, jus mayonnaise and caperberries. It was an interesting-looking thing, refined and rustic at the same time, with the veal piled on top almost like a tartare. Veal can be a little benign in flavour, but the combination here was lovely. The caperberries brought a little tartness, and the mayonnaise helped bring the veal and waffle together.

There was a good contrast between the moist veal and the slightly crunchy waffle underneath. Neither would have had quite the same appeal on its own, but together there was a lovely balance of texture and flavour. I really enjoyed it.

The house-made sourdough focaccia with black garlic butter was delicious, but we were already starting to fill up. We tried some, then remembered a lesson from Hubert, our waiter during an eighteen-course tasting menu at Guy Savoy in Paris.

For that meal, he’d warned us that we’d love the bread, but filling up on it was an amateur move.

It’s advice the Girl and I have carried with us ever since, particularly when delicious bread arrives with plenty of the meal still to come. As much as we enjoyed the focaccia, finishing it would have meant missing out on something later. Hubert would have been pleased with our restraint.

I loved the presentation of the squid-ink tonnarelli. Black pasta against a creamy sauce and a stark white plate, with a little rose of swordfish pancetta sitting on top. It looked delicious before we’d even picked up our cutlery. The pasta was perfectly al dente, with a lovely sweetness from the coral trout carbonara sauce offset by the saltiness of the swordfish pancetta.

What isn’t particularly obvious in the photograph is that there were pieces of coral trout through the pasta as well, adding another bit of texture. There was a lovely umami flavour through the dish, with katsuobushi also listed among the accompaniments. I didn’t pick up a distinct squid-ink flavour; for me, it was the visual contrast that made it such a beautiful plate. Everything we were eating worked together wonderfully, and we both really loved it. Quite possibly the dish of the night.

The coral trout main was striking too. The fish sat over a prosciutto and cardamom sauce, splashed with red chilli oil and the vibrant orange of grapefruit segments. It looked lovely and the fish was perfectly cooked. Unfortunately, it didn’t ‘hit it’ for me like the other dishes.

As you probably know by now, chilli isn’t really my thing. Here, the combination of the sauce and chilli oil had a sickly sweetness that didn’t sit well on my palate, and the grapefruit didn’t make it any more appealing to me. Perhaps a little too inventive for my taste. The Girl, who is far happier with chilli and spice, thought it was fine. I enjoyed the fish, but left most of the sauce rather than mopping it up. Well cooked, just not a combination I loved.

Our wagyu could easily have gone the same way. Stone Axe wagyu, white chocolate, black bagna cauda and Jerusalem artichoke isn’t exactly a combination you see every day, and it brought back a little of that uncertainty about the ideas on our first visit. My understanding was that the beef had spent around twenty-four hours immersed in white chocolate, allowing its flavour to infuse into the fat. I certainly wasn’t prepared for how distinct that flavour would be.

It was quite startling. There was no hunting around for a faint hint of white chocolate; it was right there on the palate, sitting alongside the richness and meatiness of the wagyu. And it worked. The sweet flavour against the beef was really quite delightful, with the lovely texture of the wagyu, the sauce and the Jerusalem artichoke underneath all contributing to the flavour and texture profile. Sweet, earthy and rich, it was an unusual dish that I was very happy to devour.

This was the sort of inventive combination I’d hoped might work on our return visit. A brave idea, but one that was delicious to eat.

After that rich wagyu, the green apple, beetroot and whey granita was exactly what we needed. Cold and melting as it hit the tongue, with a little tartness from the green apple that helped clear everything away. It was a lovely chance to settle the palate before heading into dessert.

The vertical tiramisu was beautifully presented, with the familiar elements deconstructed and stacked on top of each other. Coffee, chocolate and cream, all looking very pretty on the plate. It was also big. Really big for the end of what had already been a substantial meal.

The Girl and I generally try to avoid chocolate and tiramisu-style desserts when we have the choice. Chocolate seems to find its way into so many dessert menus, and this one felt a little like death by tiramisu, or death by chocolate. We enjoyed the first half, but after that the sweetness and richness became too much. It wasn’t that it didn’t taste good; we’d simply had enough of it.

Half the size would have been plenty, even for the pair of us. The staff acknowledged that it was a lot and that plenty of people didn’t finish it. I could see why. A smaller portion size would probably have left us with a much happier last mouthful, instead of quite so much left on the plate.

We loved that Dario came out a few times to chat about the meal and the inspiration behind it. A friendly chap, and it was good to have those conversations rather than just see the food arrive. Between that and the much sharper service, this visit felt considerably closer to the Michelin-style experience Attimi talks about.

We don’t tend to linger after we’ve finished eating, so we asked for the bill and took an Uber home. It was getting late.

There’s an interesting little footnote to our August visit. In October, Attimi went on to win Restaurant of the Year at the national 2026 Restaurant & Catering Hostplus Awards for Excellence. It happened after our visit, but still worth noting.

I didn’t love every single thing we ate. The trout sauce wasn’t for me, and the dessert was too much, but neither was a case of the kitchen cooking something badly. Where the food really worked for us, we absolutely loved it; the tonnarelli and the white-chocolate wagyu in particular. Add the improved service and the opportunity to chat with Dario, and I was very happy we’d given Attimi another chance.

Birthday dinners might still be a bit hit and miss for me, but this one was a hit. Thankfully!