Introducing the roast beef sanger of your dreams

Nali Kitchen is partly a culmination of chef Matthew Van Der Zwan’s experience, but also a reaction to it.

The Adelaide-born chef’s career has been all over the place, both geographically and professionally.

He cut his teeth in Melbourne under chefs such as Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris. He led enormous hotel operations in China and Singapore at the Radisson Blu Shanghai and the Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel, respectively. Then he returned to Australia and headed up food and beverage for the Brisbane Lions and TriCare, a retirement living provider.

So how did he end up here, in relatively poky premises in Gresham Lane in the CBD?

“The laneway reminded me of those Melbourne years. I like being down this end of the CBD, tucked away,” Van Der Zwan says. “I wanted it to be a hidden gem.

“When I first moved back to Australia [in 2020], I had a burning desire to do something, but I wasn’t sure what that would be. I found this site first and then dialled in the concept.”

So what is the concept?

Van Der Zwan has fiddled with the Nali Kitchen menu since it opened (for a while there were burgers, now they’re gone) but these days, it’s a straightforward operation organised around three proteins: Angus brisket, a rolled porchetta, and lemon thyme chicken.

You can order these as packs with sides, salads and a sauce; on their own as a “protein pack”; or pick and choose buffet-style, adding in roasted vegetables, potato gratin, garlic rice and daily salads as you please. It’s a compelling set-up.

“After being overseas and seeing good-quality food on buffets, all small portions with big flavours and colours, I came back to Brisbane and I’d see brown food on a buffet in quick-service restaurants,” Van Der Zwan says.

“I wanted to build something that was visually colourful and appetising.”

I love all this. It speaks to Van Der Zwan’s background working in top international hotels, where dining, including from the buffet, is taken very seriously – something not well understood in Australia.

Still, this is Sandwich Watch not Salad Watch, and it’s when Van Der Zwan slaps those proteins inside some focaccia that things get truly magical.

His signature is the porchetta sandwich, and it’s a cracker. But the intrusive thoughts I tend to have about 11am each day revolve around another sanger, the beef brisket.

Nali Kitchen’s braised beef brisket sandwich

Imagine the messy hot roast beef sandwich from the corner carvery of your youth, but given the best kind of glow-up.

The brisket is braised rather than smoked (“we are not a smokehouse and don’t try to be,” Van Der Zwan says), left overnight in a stock that’s kept “pretty muted” to help let the quality of the protein shine through. Van Der Zwan prefers Riverina Angus rump cap.

“We put it in at 3pm and take it out at 7am the next day, slice it and serve it with a simple jus,” he says. “It’s a nice product to start with, so you want to [let it shine].”

Cleverly, the accompaniments across all three sandwiches are the same – charred onion, rocket, salsa verde and aioli – keeping the focus squarely on the quality of the meat. Everything is then slapped between two slices of focaccia that are soft enough to soak up any decadence that might try to slip out.

This thing eats like a dream.

Brisket is a relatively heavy cut of beef, partly because of the connective collagen that holds the muscles together, and partly because of its inherently high fat content. And to be sure, Van Der Zwan doesn’t hold back on the thickness of his slice, but the 16-hour braise leaves it juicy and tender, and the rocket and salsa verde give it a lovely herbaceous lift. The whole thing is held together by the sweet, nutty aioli.

I regularly take this sandwich at my desk at work. There’s little mess, little fuss, just maximum satisfaction. And it doesn’t sit heavy in the stomach like that roast beef sanger of your youth – perhaps a testament to the quality of Van Der Zwan’s ingredients.

This thing is everything good about nostalgia, with none of the disappointment.

Where to get it

Nali Kitchen’s braised brisket sandwich isn’t cheap, at $22, but its portion size makes it good value. You can find it at 1/100 Creek Street (Gresham Lane), Brisbane.