Madame Wu

It's hard to believe, sitting here looking across the Brisbane River, (today the colour of cafe au lait and particularly sluggish) that it played a major part in the demise of the restaurant that once occupied this spot. While the water didn't come up this high in the 2011 floods, it did completely submerge Siana's sister venue Boardwalk Bar and Bistro where much of the wine stock from the high-end restaurant was stored. Neither venue managed to recover and both shut up shop in February 2012.

Up a steep stone staircase in front of the Riparian building, there's little to trip memory of Siana in the gutted and reborn restaurant, which, under new ownership, has been reinvented as Madame Wu. A wide patio opens to sweeping river views with a retractable roof for the odd overcast day. Inside, Siana's long share tables have been replaced with a variety of different seating options. The decor has some Scandinavian influence, exemplified in clean lines and blonde wood, but it crosses borders and eras with dark patterned club chairs, moody copper accents and art deco-ish lighting. A glass-encased void contains a modernist concrete tree art installation and there's a handsome private dining room seating 20 at a polished table beneath a cluster of paper lanterns.

Despite the use of the "f" word on its website (fusion), Madame Wu's contemporary Euro-Asian cuisine is seamless. Chef Brendan Barker (ex Embassy XO Sunshine Beach) is totally at home with this kind of contemporary Eurasian cuisine. Barker's menu is ambitious but confident, and best experienced with a group (or a particularly hungry friend).

Start with dumplings; pork on a sweetcorn puree, with chilli oil and black vinegar; pan-fried scallop dumplings with verjuice butter and black tobikko (flying fish roe); shredded wagyu with Jerusalem artichoke puree and chive oil; or a saffron-hued version filled with sweet minced Moreton Bay bug topped with an excellent XO sauce.

Other intriguing entrees earmarked for another visit include sweet and sour tang sui chicken ribs, and oysters with iced shiro dashi and a sprinkle of furikake (seaweed and sesame seasoning).

From the seafood section there is snapper "Guilin style" cooked in Tsingtao beer; Moreton Bay bugs grilled with miso butter and water spinach; crab stir-fried with Chinese celery and oyster sauce; and five-spice Mooloolaba prawns, gratifyingly large and very sweet (as they should be for $45) dusted in lip-tingling spice mix and lightly fried. The prawns are perfection in simplicity, particularly with a glass of Clare Valley riesling.

A main of tea salted duck stir-fried with black fungus and garnished with crisp ribbons of taro chips is generous, but the tea salt is far too subtle and there's not enough contrast in flavour to really excite.

The menu could do with a small glossary, as it assumes knowledge of regional Asian specialities, sauces and techniques.

Dessert may be extraneous to requirements, but how Asian restaurants cater to a western sweet tooth while still retaining some sense of identity is always intriguing. A tasting plate of all four desserts does East-West, incorporating both delicate and punchy flavours. There is a five-spice panna cotta, an excellent creamy green tea ice-cream with a slightly too doughy chocolate steamed bun, pear with white chocolate, gingerbread crumble and honey cream, and a quirky "crunchy nut cornflake" over milk ice-cream and finely diced strawberries.

Barker's menu alone is well worth a return visit and Madame Wu's balcony is the perfect spot to toast the capricious Brisbane River.