Monal Dining

Monal Dining is the 55-seat neighbourhood restaurant chef Yogesh Budathoki and his cousin Roman Bhandari opened on the corner of Skyring Terrace and Wyandra Street in Newstead in January 2024. Yogesh came up through Brisbane's restaurant kitchens — The Calile, Greca, Yoko, and most recently as sous chef at Honto — after arriving from Nepal in 2017. Jake Smith, formerly head chef at Honto, runs the kitchen alongside him; Roman, who relocated from Sydney's Crown Sydney and Four Points by Sheraton, runs the floor. The menu reads modern Australian with Nepalese accents and Asian-European technique throughout — Hokkaido scallops with apple and cod's roe, tuna tartare on crispy potato with bottarga, momo-style pork dumplings with hemp seed sauce, stuffed calamari with XO butter, lemon-molasses-glazed Elgin Valley chicken in curry sauce, braised lamb shoulder. Australian and New Zealand wines. Dinner Wednesday to Sunday; weekend lunch from noon.