THE BEST CHICKEN PARMI IN TOOWOOMBA
WHAT SEPARATES A GOOD ONE FROM A SAD ONE
The chicken parmi is the fairest test a pub kitchen faces. Everybody has eaten a hundred of them, everybody has an opinion, and there is nowhere to hide. Search for the best chicken parmi in Toowoomba and you'll get a lot of answers, so here's what we think actually matters.
The chicken
It starts with the breast itself, evenly flattened so it cooks through at the same rate rather than drying out at one end while the other end catches up. Crumbed fresh, not sitting in a fridge for days, and fried so the crumb stays crisp under the sauce.
The sauce and the cheese
Sauce goes on at the last minute. Too early and the crumb turns to paste. It should taste of tomatoes rather than sugar, and there should be enough of it to matter without flooding the plate. Cheese needs to melt evenly and brown a little at the edges, because that's the bit everyone fights over.
The chips
A parmi lives or dies by its chips. Hot, crisp, salted properly, and enough of them. Soggy chips will sink an otherwise excellent plate, and no amount of apology fixes it.
What we do
Ours comes with chips and salad, and there's a plain chicken schnitzel on the menu too if you'd rather build your own. Our kitchen is led by Executive Chef Angelo Velante, who cooked in London under Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing before bringing that training to a pub kitchen in Toowoomba, and it shows in the details rather than in anything fussy.
What else to order
If you want to stray from the classics, the 12 hour Kingaroy pork belly with ginger pumpkin cream is the dish people come back for, the grilled market fish with chorizo and bean ragu is the lighter option, and the Korean fried chicken wings are the right thing to order with a beer at 4pm. The Rock took out Best Regional Restaurant at the QHA Awards, so it isn't only us saying it.
Come hungry
Lunch runs 11:30am to 2pm and dinner from 5:30pm, seven days, with the snack menu filling the gap from 2pm to 6pm Wednesday to Sunday. The full menu is on the website, or just walk in and ask what's good.