Spinnakers Restaurant - 1 Spinnakers Close, Port Douglas. Ph:   07 4099 4143  

Spinnakers Restaurant at the Port Douglas Yacht Club is a really good feed and you don’t pay top dollar. That just about sums it up. Indeed, the boys who run the show, Matt and Simon, are always saying that their goal is to keep it simple, affordable and damn good. Judging by their dedicated local fan base you’d have to say they’re spot on.

The Port Douglas Yacht Club is one of those reliably eccentric local haunts that just oozes character. Surrounded by an honour guard of boats and overlooking the Mossman Ranges, Spinnakers Restaurant is a great place to drop anchor and chill. Quintessential Port.

The Spinnakers Restaurant kitchen is no nonsense. The fare is pub style, the servings are generous and they pay that little bit extra attention to detail. Check out the chalkboard menu: steak, chicken parmi, salt’n’pepper squid, surf’n’turf, and specials including Simon’s curries and fillet mignons.

My most recent meal there was a case in point; grilled red emperor with chips and veg. Dead simple. Bloody good. What’s more, the fillet was huge, (no nouvelle servings here, my friends), and super affordable. In fact, without giving too much away, you could pay twice as much for half as much elsewhere and not get your fish prepared any better. The taste was clean, the flesh cooked just right.

My guest that night was one of my housemates, and a big fan of pork. “I just love it,” she kept saying as I tried to keep the smile off my face. To that end she ordered the twice cooked pork special with crackling, which she devoured with unabashed relish.

A week previous, I had turned up with the boss to try out Simon’s beef curry. It’s amazing how satisfying a hot dish can be on a balmy tropical evening. Now, there was nothing wildly different about this curry but we did both clean the plate. If that’s not a vote of confidence, then I’m not sure what is.

Moored on the shores of Dickson’s Inlet, Spinnakers Restaurant may lack main street visibility but it’s well and truly on the local radar. Quite simply this is becasue what you get down there is a great vibe, genuine friendliness, excellent value and good tucker. Matt and Simon have been working hard to fulfil the venue’s obvious potential and it’s definitely starting to pay off.

Spinnakers Restaurant Port Douglas Yacht Club

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