Sails Restaurant

Sails all but spills onto the cabana-lined sands of Noosa Main Beach, bookending the strip at its southern end. It’s a place of white tablecloths and refined dinners, but also the kind of place where you can easily make afternoons disappear, eating Mooloolaba tuna tostaditos and sharing a bottle of something fun with sand still clinging to your ankles.

It’s also got staying power: Beverly Hills 90210 was on TV when Sails opened in 1994, and head chef Paul Leete has been overseeing the pans since 1997. But the menu and setting continues to feel of-the-moment. Perhaps it’s the dedication to local and organic produce (Noosa Reds tomatoes grown just up the road, Moreton Bay bugs et al) or the fact that good food with ocean views is a pairing that never dates. Or perhaps it’s the lasagne – layered with Fraser Coast sand crab and sat in a pool of zesty raw tomato sauce – which has been on the menu for more than 20 years.

Before you dive into the menu, kick off with the house smoked trout butter, slathered on chunks of charred ciabatta, then let affable staff guide you through the phone-book heft of a wine list. With four cellars and more than 40 bottles on the Coravin system, you can really push the boat out. Ask for an escort to the wine bar downstairs when the retina-piercing blues of Laguna Bay become too much.