The young team behind Brisbane's Clarence restaurant has expanded its Fish Lane footprint with the opening of Nito, a dark, Japanese-influenced venue just a few doors from its sister site. The restaurant opened in early November and is already drawing attention for its binchotan-fired grill, bold flavours and deliberately grungy atmosphere.
A new direction for the Clarence crew
Nito is co-owned by chef Ben McShane and Matt Kuhnemann, the same partnership behind Clarence, with Zoe O'Mahoney managing across both venues. Max Burns has taken on the head chef role, having previously worked with McShane at Stokehouse Q before following him to London for a stint at Two Lights.
McShane's Japanese cooking credentials run deep. He has worked at Kiyomi on the Gold Coast and at Umu in London when that restaurant held two Michelin stars. More recently he consulted alongside Alex Yu at Sokyo Brisbane when it launched in 2024. That accumulated experience now underpins Nito's menu philosophy.
The bond between the core team was forged, by McShane's own reckoning, through what he describes as a kind of "trauma-bonding" in London kitchens, where 80-hour weeks in cramped East London spaces were the norm. He is candid about what that period cost and what it gave back.
"It's challenging and rewarding and you get a lot out of it and you become a better cook," McShane says. "You progress a lot as a chef and even as a person. It builds a lot of resilience and discipline and skill. You're all going through this challenging part of your life and you learn together and learn to cover for each other."
Dark timber, besa brick and a record player in the back bar
Nito occupies a semi-subterranean space beneath a car park ramp, and its designers have leaned hard into that industrial character. The dining room is tiered and moody, finished in dark timber and unpainted besa brick, with old film posters on the walls and a palette built around deep oranges and reds. The handwritten "Nito" logo, scrawled in an inky script, sets the tone.
"The vibe of it is a record player in the back bar and a big grill in this dark space underneath a car park," McShane says, adding that the aesthetic reflects deliberate, considered choices rather than happy accident. "Everything has been thought through."
That large grill, powered by binchotan charcoal, is the centrepiece of Burns's kitchen. The menu draws on many of the same farmers and suppliers the Clarence team already works with, but applies their produce to a tighter, pickles-and-ferments-forward format.
What's on the menu
The opening menu is split into raw items and starters, followed by a large-format yakimono (grilled and fried) section designed for sharing. Highlights from the lighter end include:
- Soy-pickled Neighbourhood Farm tomato tartlet with whipped ricotta and shiso
- Fried U8 tiger prawns with a golden curry Marie Rose sauce
- Pig head katsu sando with a pickled wasabi special sauce
- Trout tartare with wafu dressing, noritamago and rice cracker
The yakimono section scales things up considerably. A whole side of Murray cod arrives with a tomato and kombu sauce vierge and spring onion. A Japanese-style duck claypot rice is paired with sun-dried tomato XO and shiitake. The showpiece is an 850-gram Imperial Blossom wagyu T-bone, scored five times and served with a bone-marrow yakiniku sauce.
Drinks: local wine and an expanding sake list
O'Mahoney has written a wine list of around 40 small-scale local producers, consistent with the approach at Clarence. Nito adds a sake dimension with ten selections currently on offer, described as "interesting and funky" and already selling strongly. That list is expected to grow as the venue settles in.
Nito is open now on Fish Lane in South Brisbane, operating alongside its older sibling Clarence in what is becoming one of the city's more compelling restaurant pairings.
