Donna Chang
Brisbane City
Updated: Sep 11, 2024
Donna Chang is a stunningly beautiful fine dining Chinese restaurant inside one of Brisbane’s most magnificent heritage buildings, the old Queensland Government Savings Bank circa 1914.
Like a grand old world ballroom with a Hong Kong alley along one side, the dining hall features 2 storey high ornate ceilings, wood-panelled walls, exquisite chandeliers, pale parquetry floors, marble tables, potted plants and padded chairs.
Overlooking the room is a balcony gallery with a winding staircase leading up to some of the restaurant’s private dining rooms and along one side is the steamy open kitchen with live seafood tanks (lobster, abalone, mud crab, spanner crab & Queensland groper), glass cabinets of hanging ducks and a team of specialty chefs, busy working their magic.
The contemporary Chinese menu combines Cantonese and Sichuan flavours. Dim sum is a house specialty with dedicated dim sum masters in the kitchen.
Recommended are the banquets which offer a sample across the menu such as pickled vegetables, cold noodles, dim sum, delicious bao and melt-in-the-mouth pork belly.
Stand-outs from the Mains include spanner crab cheung fun and roasted half duck with Davidson plum.
Meanwhile, the dessert menu features unique twists like strawberries with young soy curd and Sichuan-spiced hibiscus bubble tea and soft serves of the day - think jackfruit with green ants and mandarin leaf dust.
Not to be missed is a visit to the ambient cavernous basement bar underneath - the Boom Boom Room Izakaya - which is accessed via an old staircase in the foyer at the rear of Donna Chang and features rare spirits and private vault rooms.
Good to know - Seinfeld fans will recognise the restaurant's name from the iconic 'The Chinese Woman' episode, which is where it came from. The Donna Chang fortune cookies even have Seinfeld quotes inside.
Need to know - Donna Chang is in the base of the Adina Apartment Hotel, with restaurant entry from the corner portico of the old bank building.
The menu may have changed since our visit.
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