Fantastic seafood at Doyle’s
I’m terribly behind on my blogs at the moment, but am making a valiant effort to catch up and am counting down the days until our Christmas break when I will have some free time in what feels like the first time in many many months. I felt the need to do a quick restaurant review for a place I went to with visitors ages ago, but it was some of the best seafood I’ve had in Australia so think it bears a mention. Doyle’s is an absolute institution in Sydney’s beautiful Watsons Bay, which is one of those many wonderful locations that is best reached by a ferry ride. Sydney’s harbour has countless different bays and Watsons Bay is the most easterly one.
The restaurant is known for its huge range of fresh seafood and its classy atmosphere. It’s definitely expensive, but I’d say it’s worth it for the experience and particularly if you go with several people and share a bunch of things, it’s fantastic. It’s a great place to have a long luxurious lunch (which is what we did), but I’m sure it would be delightful for dinner in the summer as well…
Sourdough. We decided we obviously had to get some sides of bread to go with our seafood, but since they brought it out first, we basically demolished it immediately. This was reallllly good sourdough – crunchy crust on the outside and perfectly soft on the inside.
Garlic bread – also delicious (although I probably preferred the simple sourdough)
Mix plate with a stuffed jumbo prawn, salt and pepper calamari, smoked salmon, a rock oyster, and king prawn. This was nice because it had a little bit of everything. I’m not normally a smoked salmon fan but it was probably my favourite of the lot, and the stuffed prawn was delicious too
Whole baked snapper with a Thai salad of capsicum, cashew nuts, bean sprouts, snow pea shoots, fried shallots, and Thai basil and coriander. This was a huge win of a dish. Whole fish can look kind of freaky (I mean yikes look at that eye) but this was amazing – I loved the accompaniments which really complimented the fish perfectly
On the left, Tasmanian mussels steamed with white wine, garlic lemon butter, and bay leaves, and on the right Tasmanian scallops on the half shell (so pretty!) with a cucumber, capsicum, and red onion salsa and a chili ginger caramel dressing. The mussels were huge and the sauce was delicious, and the scallops were perfectly cooked and seasoned. This definitely made me want to go back to Tassie! (they have the best seafood there)
Institutions become institutions for a reason, typically because of service and consistent quality of food, and Doyle’s didn’t disappoint on that front. With heaps of outdoor tables, it really makes the perfect spot for a long lazy lunch during the summer, followed by a walk around the area and a relaxing ferry ride back to the city!
merrifood 