It Was All A Dream – Maggie Choo, Broadbeach

You see it before you reach it. Walking the Surf Parade strip after dark, past the festoon-wrapped palms and the competing neon of half a dozen kitchens, there is a magenta glow spilling out onto the footpath that belongs to none of them. Follow it and you find the source: a ceiling of cherry blossom, lit hard from below, covering an entire room. It reads less like a restaurant frontage than a theatre stage set that you can walk into.

Maggie Choo sits in the thick of Broadbeach’s restaurant precinct and refuses to hold the street at arm’s length. The room simply opens onto the pavement. Verandah seating for thirty runs out under gas heaters, close enough that the parade becomes part of dinner: tourists in resort wear, families three generations deep, a Lamborghini idling past at walking pace because there is nowhere to go. All of it high-energy, faintly showy, and still relaxed enough to bring the kids.

Inside, the fit-out was conceived and managed in-house by the Gennari Group under hospitality owner Patrik Gennari, drawing on an eclectic mix of Southeast Asian references. The result is theatrical rather than architecturally faithful, and it is better for the honesty. Walls are dark timber and black; floorboards are stained to a charcoal Japanese tone. The blossom canopy and the flickering glass candle holders do all the work. Overhead lanterns hang through the branches. A par can throws magenta stage light up into the flowers beside one table, which puts whoever sits there centre stage whether they asked for it or not. A black-and-white portrait of Maggie, backlit in neon, watches the bar. Mock temple pillars and roof tiles appear where you least expect them.

There are roughly twenty seats through the middle of the room and another fifteen to twenty in a more private rear section, separated by a ceiling of upturned paper umbrellas and framed by a Japanese temple arch in timber. The bar seats a handful — the right spot for a drink before you sit down. We took the middle of the room with family, under the full canopy, where the visual immersion is total and the street noise drops away.

On the rear wall, a neon sign reads it was all a dream. It is the thesis statement. The room borrows a little from a Bangkok side alley and a little from late-night Kyoto, and the lighting bends things far enough that you find yourself genuinely wondering whether the blossom is growing or hanging.

We arrived on a Sunday at 6.30pm. By seven the room was half full and rising — a steady arrival of locals rather than a rush, the mood tipping into convivial without ever becoming loud. Slow soul and easy grooves sit under the conversation, energetic but never competing with it. Lighting is warm, low and forgiving. Service was sharp, friendly and genuinely quick; plates land fast enough that nobody goes hungry waiting.

The kitchen has drifted from strict Thai toward modern Asian, with room for experiments like a wagyu beef ragù with noodles. What has not drifted is the accuracy. The kingfish and salmon tartare arrives with goma dare (a toasted sesame dressing, nutty and lightly sweet) thickened to the consistency of mayon — enough body to coat the fish pieces combined with pickled cucumber, chilli and a brightening touch of yuzu-pressed olive oil. The wonton chips curl up at the edges ; each one becomes a scoop for the tartare. Built for sharing, and exactly right for the family birthday we are celebrating. The kingfish sashimi is cleaner still: nahm jim, ginger marmalade, lime, coconut cream, coriander and Thai basil, with the lime and chilli dominating the flavour in a pleasing way.

The roti and peanut curry is luxuriosuly smooth and creamy, coloured by turmeric, light on ginger and garlic — it’s flavour lifted by fresh kaffir lime leaf aroma. The caramelised chilli squid is stir-fried with ginger and lemongrass under a thick, deluxe sauce with a detected combined hint of shrimp paste, chilli, peanuts and coriander, with a heat that stays with you and a gentle shellfish aroma underneath. Asian greens come steamed with oyster sauce and crispy garlic, glazed and faintly smoky. Best of the table was the yellow curry. Local ocean-caught QLD barramundi arrives in large chunks that taste ultra-clean, with coriander, Thai basil, coconut and kaffir lime. The flesh is soft and flakes apart at a touch. Kaffir lime and palm sugar dominate the sauce, with steamed rice alongside. Authentic and delicious. The tiger prawn salad is essentially a luxury papaya salad: QLD tiger prawns peeled and halved through green papaya, heirloom tomatoes, peanuts, mint, coriander and kaffir lime in a hot and sour dressing. Simple, filling, good.

The drinks list is worth attention. Beach Please! arrives in a martini glass with a salt rim and a dried lime wheel — coconut cream, lime, watermelon syrup, and a classically tropical aroma before you taste anything. The rosemary spritz is the sharper of the two: Aperol, vermouth, lemon, rosemary syrup and soda, with a sprig in the glass throwing fragrance up as you sip.

We miss a few things — the Thai watermelon salad, the duck curry were earlier staples that we loved, also the green papaya salad in its unadorned form. But this is hardly grounds for complaint. Three years of return visits confirm it: it’s still Gold Coast’s most reliable and consistently high-quality modern Asian restaurant. We expect a return on our very next family celebration.

Maggie Choo – Broadbeach
105/89 Surf Parade, Broadbeach, Queensland
Tel. 07 5619 9402
Web. gennarigroup.com.au/maggie-choo-broadbeach