Cascades Restaurant Review - Peppers Beach Club is one of Port Douglas’s newest resorts. When they opened in 2006 they opted to keep their in house restaurant, well, in house. However, having spent several months fine tuning the machine they have now opened Cascades to the public.

Good thing too, because the kind of relaxed, poolside ambience the restaurant has is perfect for Port Douglas. This white themed, downstairs space has an intimacy and coolness that recalls a kind of colonial languor. It’s ideal for tropical lazing.

As well as working on the aesthetics, the Beach Club Port Douglas team has clearly fine tuned the menu because their Mod Oz selection is intelligently tailored to suit balmy evenings. With an accent on Asian influenced seafood and stylish Mediterranean classics, they offer a broad range without drowning you in a twenty page menu. Very smart.

A Cascades Restaurant signature is their beautifully tweaked version of chicken & prawn spring rolls. They come as a three tier stack (see the picture); and the blend of Thai chicken and Coral Sea tiger prawn makes for an appetite whetting entrée.

As does the sublimely simple, unpretentious calamari salad. Rather than fried, the calamari is scorched and tossed with a light yet fragrant salad of Vietnamese mint, coriander and basil. A very delicate little dish.

Onto the mains, and the meatier pleasures of the veal scaloppini, which is here topped with tarragon buttered sand crab. This is an excellent and surprising combination, the earthy veal accented by the salty high notes of the crab. The mash that it’s served with is also downright delicious, a rewardingly simple player in this cleverly complex creation.

On the night, my partner and I found it hard to resist the Cascades’ fish of the day. The red emperor with Thai stir fry veg and a gorgeously sweet lemon scented jasmine rice cake was drool material. The finish, an orange and ginger sauce, underscored the restaurant’s philosophy of creative but seriously rewarding combinations of flavour.

The very generous cheese platter we finished with was similarly enjoyable. We were able to graze at leisure while, in between, we devoured our golden waffle dessert, drizzled as it was with an addictive forest berry compote.

Cascades Restaurant is a cosy, chilled poolside gem, an intimate and tasty point of difference from the noisy bustle of many modern restaurants. It is simple and assured and well worth taking your favourite person to.

Cascades Restaurant - Port Douglas Australia