Sono Japanese Restaurant | Portside Wharf

I think I found my new favourite restaurant in Brisbane! I can’t believe I haven’t come here sooner! I booked a dinner here for a birthday and I couldn’t fault anything. The service we received was welcoming and accommodating from the moment we arrived. They also acknowledged the dinner was for a birthday and added a birthday touch to dessert. The food was delicious and flavourful. We also enjoyed the atmosphere of the restaurant. I highly recommend and we look forward to going again!

An absolutely amazing experience. We had the Sono Tasting Course and it was the best choice. All of the food was delicious, with stand outs being the sashimi and crab. The servers were wonderful, and the atmosphere was the perfect balance between moody, romantic and friendly.

Very upscale restaurant, top-notch service and wait staff. Food was beautifully presented, but does come with A price tag. Had one of the banquets, everything came nicely timed, and described eloquently. Some in our party were not completely satiated, so try not to turn up absolutely starving. A wonderful dining experience with friends, though most likely reserved for special occasions.

We were disappointed, unfortunately. We had the Zen course at $155 per person. While the sashimi was fresh and tasty, the rest of the dishes, especially the cooked ones, fell short of fine dining expectations given the price. We’ve had similar set menus at a fraction of the cost that were more flavorful, well-paired, and felt more thoughtfully crafted. The appetizer platter was underwhelming: the umaki lacked flavor, the half spring roll resembled something from a lower-end restaurant, and the beef wrap was nearly tasteless. Although we did enjoy the salmon item, which was well-balanced with the addition of cashews. The tempura was underseasoned. The beef houbayaki was very disappointing: the beef was very tough and chewy, and the grills provided didn’t generate enough heat to sear the meat properly. The nigiri was small, and the two pieces offered didn’t leave much of an impression—they were fine, but not remarkable. The dessert was also underwhelming, resembling a standard bakery cake with a scoop of ice cream and a dollop of anko. The dishes we did enjoy were the grilled black cod, which was cooked well, flakey and quite flavourful, as well as the sashimi as mentioned earlier. So we recommend ordering these dishes individually if you can. To end on a positive note, the service was exceptional, and the ambiance was quite good too.

I had a 5-star experience at Sono. Every staff member was talkative, friendly, and attentive. The food was simply flawless—nothing short of spectacular. Dining at Sono will be my biggest motivation the next time I visit Brisbane.

I had a lovely birthday dinner with my family in one of the private rooms with tatami mats, paper sliding doors and lowered seating! The atmosphere was fantastic, all the staff were attentive, polite and kind. We will 100% be back because the food was beautiful, delicious and I do not have a single bad thing to say. Huge thank you to our waiter Takashi for being very patient with our family taking our time to order from the A La Carte menu. Be prepared to take your shoes of to respect the Japanese traditions of tatami flooring - this was a fun element to the space that added to the immersion. A piece of elegant Japan in the middle of Brisbane 😊.

Fantastic service and atmosphere. Mixed food for its price point. Food came minutes after ordering. Very efficient. 🍣A La Carte ENTREES 🙂Spicy Buri Kingfish Roll - 7/10. Standard good. Fish was fresh. Not spicy in the slightest. Avo overpowered the fish. Fresh wasabi on the side. ☺️Tempura Prawn roll - 8/10. Great textures. Could tell the tempura was fresh. 📌😍Soft Shell Crab with Shiro Salsa - 10/10 best ever. Crispy. Large serve for $21. Great sour and tangy vinaigrette to compliment. 😊Salmon Carpaccio - 7.5/10. Thick salmon pieces. Passion fruit jelly complimented. Soy sesame dressing was basic. 🍱MAINS 🙂Wagyu Beef Houbayaki - 6/10. Fun presentation. Can cook to your liking. Miso glaze was average and could have more body. Wish it was smokier. Wagyu quality didn’t stand out. 🥲Black Cod Saikyo Yaki - 3.5/10. We ordered this because of the amazing Google reviews. The fish was cooked to perfection, can appreciate that. The miso glaze was FAR TOO SWEET for both our palettes. Couldn’t taste the fish much at all. Was overpowered by sweet. Found 6 bones, but the waitress warned us when serving. Would understand how people who love very sweet meat could appreciate this dish, but personally I would never order this again. 🥂DRINKS A decent mocktail range, with lovely pictures on the menu to help you decide. ☺️Tropical Geisha (Strawberry, cloud apple, grapefruit, Genmaicha) - 7.5/10. Grapefruit was the strongest flavour. Elements paired well. 💸Sparkling water (San Perregrino) was $12 a bottle FYI. ✨The staff: very attentive, polite and descriptive. Empty plates were taken away smoothly. They even surprised us with a complimentary matcha ice cream because we were celebrating a special occasion. Much appreciated! The venue has a stunning view of the Brisbane river if you book over about a month in advance (according to the staff). Because we only booked a week in advance we couldn’t see the river when sitting down. The space was still nice.

I brought my mum to celebrate her birthday in Sono. The food is amazing and the service is exceptional. They asked as at the beginning what’s the occasion we mentioned it’s my mums birthday and at the end of the banquet they lit up a candle for her and she absolutely loved it. The special sashimi platter is not only beautiful but the fish is so fresh and delicious. The sono signature tasting banquet is well balanced with fish meat and vegetables. The wagyu melt melts in the mouth. Definitely would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good restaurant for a special event.

Probably the most romantic restaurant I've been to in Brisbane so far. Clean, sophisticated, soft lighting, amazing views and pleasant sounds throughout the restaurant (not annoying loud). The food was good but I just find it expensive. I guess for the ambience and assumedly, the good produce, I can understand why things are priced the way they are. But still. For example, I really wanted to try an oyster to experience what I was hoping would be top grade quality. It cost $3.50 for one oyster that was seriously probably one of the smallest ones I've ever had. It tasted amazing, it had a nice, clean but strong oyster flavour but I've had others from farmers markets that were much bigger and didn't cost as much. I also had some pork, which was nice in flavour but some parts were dry. I also ordered King fish sashimi in orange sauce but I felt the sauce didn't have a good balance of sourness, sweetness and saltiness. It was just sour all around. In terms of service, it was hot and cold. It took about five waves to flag someone down to replace water at our table. It was a pain trying to get attention. I'm not sure if it was because we were in a private room but the doors are open and we were a big group so there's really no good reason to be ignoring bigger groups (duh, bigger revenue, hello). I'm giving this restaurant 4 stars because of the overall feel of the restaurant - it's just ... So nice!

Excellent ambiance. Excellent service. Excellent food. This made for an amazing and memorable anniversary dinner. We selected the Tasting Course with the wine match. It was phenomenal! The wines complimented each course perfectly, bringing out the best of the flavours of each. The most fresh & tender sashimi we have ever encountered. The Waygu dish was very, very good. The barramundi dish was to die for! The dessert plate was perfect with the moscato wine. It was the perfect finale for this gastronomical ecstasy of which we were able to partake!

Another 'special occasion dinner'; another degustation-style restaurant. We must have dined in about 3 or 4 of these over the last half year, but a Japanese one had still been missing. Cue Sono. We loved the restaurant for the atmosphere and truly excellent service (personal, informative / knowledgeable, entertaining). We both ordered the 'tasting menu' with wine/sake pairing. For starters, the amount of alcohol in the pairing is really quite high (half full glasses x 6). Not sure that this was even possible, but I would have preferred less(!) alcohol (I guess we could have just let some of it go to waste, but that would be near sacrilegious). If you don't mind sipping from the same glass with your dinner partner, I'd recommend ordering just one wine/sake pairing (and save $45 in the process). Now, for the food. Some of it was really excellent (particularly the first half), but not all of it knocked our socks off. Definite highlights were the oyster in lime sauce (part of dish 1 - all of dish one was great really), salmon sashimi and snapper carpaccio in vinaigrette (part of 2), and the delicious crab meat croquette (part of 3). The fourth course had a delicious piece of seared salmon belly sushi, but the two pieces of cucumber sushi roll and one piece of prawn tempura roll felt a bit out of place in a menu like this. Maybe it was designed as light intermediate bite? Our mains were duck breast, which was ok but not special, and excellent Wagyu steak, but in a rather heavy sauce (too sweet imo). The desert was a chocolate cake, which was tasty, but not wow, and not spectacularly presented either, as you often get when splurging on a degustation. Wine/sake pairings were great. Service was excellent. Would be happy to eat here again some day and pick some of our favorites from this tasting menu.

I went to Sono for a dinner with a friend. The atmosphere was firstly were nice and calm, even though the restaurant was packed! All the wait staff were incredibly friendly and helpful, always with a smile. All the food at Sono was AMAZING! I ordered Soft Shell Crap with Shiso Salsa, Prawn Tempura Hand Roll and Tasmanian Salmon roll! Firstly the soft shell crab with the vinegar sauce was so delicious and both sushi dishes were also nice. For desert I ordered Green Tea Marble Cake with ice cream and read bean paste and green tea sauce, this was also amazing! I'm not such a fan of green tea, but the cake and sauce were both tasty and not overwhelmingly! Definitely give it a try if you visit Sono

I am a super big fan of Sono and what William and his team have created here at Portside is nothing to be sneezed at. A teppanyaki area, tables with great views of the river and space between you and the next table in general makes this split level restaurant one of the best I have seen. The chefs are amazing, artistic and the food does not take a long time to be served. All the food I have had here is immaculate. A restaurant worthy of being in a 5 star hotel, this place serves a mean Waygu Beef Tataki and also, it is a good thing to note as well... the entrees are pretty decently sized. In fact instead of ordering a main each, most of the time my husband and I order double the amount of entrees so we can taste everything and it fills us up at the same if not less the cost. An entree to try here is the Zucchini flower with vegetables. Served in a tempura coating, it is to die for. For me, what makes this place so great is the matching of the sauces... for each entree/dish they have a different sauce and the sauces compliment the food and make each dish pop that little more.

Went to the Brisbane sono and was blown away so decided to try portside as well , got the private room again and the service yet again was second to none! Food blew us all away and I must say the chochlate dessert was incredible. Once again ate a full 4 coarses each with champagne and wine cocktails and a few bottles of sake and was still around $120 per person , very reasonable for such high standards of food and service.

I recently had lunch here with a friend and we were both really impressed! The restaurant is stunning and the food is amazing! Neutral tones create a warm atmosphere and there are spectacular views of the river. We chose the teppanyaki option for lunch which is $45 for a three course set menu which I think is great value. Our chef was charming and quite funny. He shaped our sizzling friend rice into a heart and made it beat with his cooking utensils - it was very cute! The first course was a steaming miso soup which was very light with a subtle sea flavour - the perfect starter. The main was a seared fillet of Atlantic salmon cooked on the grill in soy sauce and white wine - this was served with a side of artfully carved vegetables and fried rice. Dessert was a scoop of velvety green tea ice-cream which tasted just as good as it looked. Sono offer a variety of dining options including the teppayaki bar, sushi bar and al-a-carte. Private rooms with river views are available for groups which makes it the perfect location for your next function.

My gosh. I really enjoy eating at Sono. The kicker in this five star review is the staff. They're so lovely, and seem knowledgable about the food and drinks they supply. I've been for a meal before, but twice I've come for the tasting course. I love it. It's so filling, and the matching sake and wines are fantastic. The food is so well prepared, and the flavours they use go fantastically. There are tables, rooms with sliding doors and booths along the edge that face out to the cruise ship terminals. When I booked, I was informed there would be a function, I let them know we were having the tasting course and when we were seated on the night everything was all ready. We even had a server ask if we were out for a special occasion. We weren't, but said it was our anniversary soon, so they brought us dessert with a sparker and took some photos for us. Sono makes for a great evening and a great meal. Oh, and before I forget, the tasting course is very reasonably priced.

Went for Valentine's Day dinner $130pp and it was the biggest dissapointed !! First 3 of 5 course meals was garbage! If it wasnt for the main wagyu beef steak I would have rated the food 1 star! Would never go back! Wasted $260 !!!!

I LOVE SONO PORTSIDE. I really do. I came here with my boyfriend and was blown away by how awesome the food was. We both had the Tasting course, which is a 6 course meal, including optional wine matching. Each and every dish was well thought out, brilliantly presented and tasted divine. The staff were absolutely amazing and went out of their way to ensure our dining experience was perfect. There was a large group celebrating a birthday which detracted from the ambience but that is to be expected when dining out I suppose. All in all, I had an awesome night and would recommend Sono to anybody looking for an elegant date night venue.

It's hard to find great food in Brisbane. Good food, well that's as easy as any girl off Beauty and the Geek. I jest, of course! Great food; it's the eternal culinary quest isn't it? Sono is unexpectedly quite large with the ambiance made up of of dark wood panelling, sunken booths and teppanyaki grills with sweeping views of the Brisbane River. Not one to be shy, I channelled Richard Simmons and gave the menu a real workout. The highlight of the meal was easily the Black Cod Saikyo Yaki which rivals the signature Miso Cod at Nobu. Actually, I'll go out on a limb and say it's actually better. It really is! This isn't a restaurant you come to eat great sushi at. Well, you can do that too, but Sono Portside is a great way to explore modern Japanese cuisine done well. Really well. Bravo BrisVegas!

This is my favourite restaurant in Brisbane and it one of the more authentic places to get Japanese... Although it is a little on the expensive side and the service can be a little slow. The tuna sashimi is delicious and melts in your mouth. Try the edamame for a appetiser that won't spoil the meal..

Omg what an amazing place, the food is wonderful and the service is top notch. You can't go wrong stopping by here for a feed. I dropped by with a mate for lunch and had a wonderful feed, i went with cucumber rolls and chicken for my mains. My mate went for the plate of sushi and fried crab cakes. Get a window seat if you can.

Best restaurant ever. Beautiful atmosphere, fantastic staff and service and great food. The food is a little pricey but with such great service and food presentation it makes up for it. I recommend this place to any lover of Japanese cuisine and relaxing, classy atmospheres by the water.

Sono at Portside is a fantastic dining option before or after a movie, being conveniently located in the same complex as the cinema, with a connecting walkway to the foyer. This Sono is a bit fancier than its sister store in the CBD, and has more of a fine dining vibe for those who like the sweeter things in life at a more reasonable price. I've come here for a few birthday dinners and the staff and food at Sono has never failed to impress. When you book, you can request a special boothed room where shoes are removed and you can indulge in a more traditional Japanese dining experience. Otherwise, there are plenty of tables in the restaurant, as well as seats alongside the central food preparation area. In addition to the kitchen in the back, sushi chefs are located in the centre of the restaurant where diners can watch their sashimi be prepared. The chefs are very friendly and exuberant and their faces light up if you know a little Japanese and speak to them. I recommend the edamame (they come out fresh and sprinkled with the perfect amount of salt) and the sashimi platter (either for one, or to be shared amongst a table).

We are grateful to have found Sono at Portside. For an occasion, for an experience all on its own, we have found dining at the teppanyaki bar delightful and satisfying every time. The set menus are well arranged with lighter or more plentiful dishes depending on your hunger. And there is a la carte options as well so it's flexible. The staff are very conscious of your comfort and very helpful with any dietary requirements you might have. Your chef, grilling and sautéing, entertaining right in front of you is delightful. You can get involved with some culinary acrobatics or muse serenely at the heavenly dishes entertaining your tastebuds. Particular favourites are the soft shell crab, duck and asparagus, morten bay bug with wasabi and blue cheese sauce. If you are lucky enough to catch a dessert by a particular chef like we did last time, it will almost be reason in itself to go back (pic hopefully attached to the review). It is a place for special occasions for us, but they offer well priced business lunch menu for $30 often and the cost is in line with the quality of dining and service. We have yet to dine a la carte at Sono because we have had too much fun with 'G' or Levi as our chefs at the hot plate of deliciousness. But when we do I am sure to put a review up then too. PS the view on to the river is lovely if dining near the expansive windows.

I have eaten at some of the best places in the world over the past 5 years and this rates! big achievement for Brisbane. The experience is very authentic and the service is impeccable. Book ahead and get a private room if you can its worth it. Very impressed. Just be prepared to part with the world class bill too :)

This restaurant is the best Japanese restaurant in town. Nice looking place with a lot of dishes to choose from. Its a place you go to for special occasions or if you just want to impress your date. The Teppanyaki is as good as any but the Black Cod Saikyo Yaki is to die for. The fresh sushimi at this place will set your mouth watering and wanting more. The only thing I didn't like about this place is that they serve live lobster still with moving tentacles. It was a bit disturbing to see especially if you know how it was prepared. If the food wasn't that good I wouldn't go back. Definitely worth a try.

Having been to Japan, this place is it! if you want an experience and to just absolutely enjoy your food, definitely go here. The tasting menu is amazing. Not a bad price for everything that you get and the experience. Absolutely beautiful restaurant with food that is beautiful to look at and to eat. Just amazing. I love this place for every possible reason.

I have been here twice and both times were a treat! We recently took friends and decided on their $85 banquet order and each morsel was incredible. The food kept coming, we kept eating and making all kinds of sounds trying to explain the food explosion in our mouths. We loved the atmosphere (we sat traditional style with shoes off and feet dangling under the table) and the service was impeccable. If you are looking for a fun night out, filled with experiences your tastebuds will remember, check out Sono - highly recommend it. It is hard to list the best dishes because each one we tried we loved! Enjoy it.

Amazing views and great food. They seem to have one good lunch special and the rest are mediocre. Great drinks menu.

Good food! Expensive! Will not accomodate you re seating at the tempan grill if it is not full. They will tell you there is a previous booking.

This is my favourite restaurant. Beautiful food, perfect ambience and wonderful staff.