Tonic Restaurant - Hibiscus Gardens Resort, Port Douglas. Ph:   07 4099 5315  

Tonic Restaurant at the Hibiscus Gardens Resort and Spa in Port Douglas is breakfast at its finest, followed by a relaxing, indulgent spa treatment? What if that breakfast was served by the pool and consisted of healthy, locally sourced, seasonal produce? Sounds like a great way to start the day. In fact, it’s just the tonic.

Hibiscus Gardens is a Port Douglas owned and operated resort and spa just three minutes walk from the main street and within its Indonesian inspired grounds sits an in-house breakfast bar, Tonic. Set in a cosy Balinese style courtyard, Tonic serves up Port’s most idyllic breakfasts.

I turned up with our photographer on a beautiful FNQ morning to investigate the whispers we’d been hearing about how good this breakfast hideaway was. We emerged an hour or so later to confirm the rumours.

We went for three courses from the a la carte menu, although the photographer did seriously eye off both the Cane Farmer’s and Tropical Continental Breakfasts. Nonetheless, he was more than happy to tuck into the scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. (The eggs, by the way, are free range Yamagishi.) After that we both got into the gluten free Brookfarm muesli with organic nuts, seeds and fruits, which is absolutely more-ish with Mungali bio dynamic yoghurt, (produced just a short distance from Port in the Atherton Tablelands). 

The photographer’s eyes then lit up when the ‘exotic fruits of the rainforest’ platter turned up. Not only was it a riot of colour, which he duly snapped, but a treat of tropical tastes. On the morning in question we had the red splendour of the dragon fruit, rambutans, and the spritzy sweetness of the pataya cactus amongst others. Had we come in a different season we might have had such treasures as black sapote, mangosteen, tamarillo and custard apple. FNQ is indeed an Eden of fruity delight.

While we sipped our super fresh juices and took in the aroma of our Mokodor coffees we found ourselves pondering the other menu; namely, the Li’tya Day Spa menu. Having had a couple of treatments previously at Hibiscus I was able to recommend the particular joys of the Vichy shower, all of which had my photographer packing down his gear and inquiring about facials.

So, while he slid off to make himself more attractive, I chilled out by the pool and wondered how it was that I hadn’t found out about Tonic Restaurant sooner.

Tonic Restaurant Hibiscus Gardens Resort Port Douglas

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