Introducing the roast beef sanger of your dreams

It has all the glorious nostalgia of the corner carvery, with none of the drawbacks. Behold, one of our best Brisbane sandwich discoveries yet.

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.

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“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.”

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.

Imagine the messy hot roast beef sandwich from the corner carvery