By Franz Scheurer
What is more than a 20 minute taxi ride and less than a 1½ hour car trip from Adelaide, has glorious views, a tranquil setting, good food, good wines and lots of friendly faces? The answer is: The Flying Fish Restaurant and Beachside Kiosk at Port Elliot on picturesque Horseshoe Bay.
Run by Lea Steimanis and Frieda de Leeuw out front with chef Leigh Irish at the stoves, this is about as close to the water as you can get. Even if the trip from Adelaide is slow and the curiously direction-changing multi-lane highway happens to run the wrong way on your way south, you can’t help but exhale, feel the weight of the ‘city worries’ slip off your shoulders, relax and assume the comfortable ‘who cares about time’ attitude prevailing down here.
The kiosk is open daily all year round, and the restaurant daily for lunch and Friday and Saturday nights for dinner.
The kiosk serves simple but fresh fare from Belgian Waffles with a cup of coffee to a plate of oysters or fish and chips with a glass of wine. The restaurant is rather more substantial. Recently refurbished the restaurant’s clean, modern lines are lifted by a polished wooden floor, a large wooden wine rack, tables and serving counter. An old upright piano sits in one corner and the chair in front of it suggests that it is being used. Large windows let in lots of light and the general atmosphere is one of beachside laid-back, simple luxury.
We shared a plate of bread, olives and goat’s curd whilst reading the menu. There is no wine list and you simply walk over to the wine rack for the reds, or the large fridge for the whites, and select what takes your fancy.
The ‘Freshly Shucked Coffin Bay Oysters’ were fresh and creamy and the ‘Western Australian Saucer Scallops with braised Fennel, Saffron Cream and Yarra valley Salmon Roe’ fragrant and well presented. A plate of ‘House Cured Atlantic Salmon with a Salad of Avocado and Ruby Grapefruit’ was competent and plentiful.
For mains we selected the ‘Grilled Moreton Bay Bugs with a Chilli and Lime Mayonnaise’, which turned out to be a recreation of the leaning tower of Pisa with a good mayo and rather sad bugs. The fish of the day was much better and a lot fresher and the ‘House Made Ravioli of Spring Vegetables and Ricotta with a Roasted Tomato sauce and Reggiano’ succulent and full of flavour with the pasta a little overcooked for our liking.
It’s a pity that so many wonderful locations, right on the water, all around Australia, have such a hard time getting really fresh seafood. I will never forget a lunch in Cooktown, sitting on the jetty watching large and wonderful fish swim two metres below us, getting served a plate of frozen, pre-prepared fish fillets! Considering this, the Flying Fish does better than average but it seems you have to go to the ‘big smoke’ to eat really fresh seafood.
The ‘Affogato’ was just the right dessert to round off the meal without weighing us down too much and the restaurant is good value for money. Service was friendly, informed and appropriate for the location and we enjoyed ourselves. It is certainly worth the trip from Adelaide!
Score: 6/10
For more information or bookings:
The Flying Fish Restaurant and Beachside Kiosk
No 1 The Foreshore
Horseshoe Bay
Pot Elliot SA 5212
Tel.: 08 8554 3504