Restaurants in Darwin
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A
Hanuman
Ask most locals where to find Darwin’s top fine-dining experience and the answer is usually Hanuman. Sophisticated but not stuffy or pretentious, enticing aromas of innovative Indian and Thai Nonya dishes waft from the kitchen to the stylish open dining room and deck. The signature dish is oysters bathed in lemon grass, chilli and coriander, or the meen mooli – reef fish in coconut and curry leaves – but the menu is broad, with exotic vegetarian choices and banquets available.
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Cornucopia Museum Café
Appended to the museum and gallery, this café makes for a good stop while you're in the 'hood. Maybe share a trio of dips, commenting on how good a dip would be, while overlooking Vestey's Beach. Try a salad or pasta special, remarking on how special that collection of artwork you've just walked around is. It's also good for a late breakfast, for the children and for meaty mains.
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Vietnam Saigon Star
Darwin’s speedy Vietnamese restaurant serves up inexpensive rice-paper rolls, and beef, pork, chicken and seafood dishes with a multitude of sauces. Vegetarians are well catered for and there are good-value lunch specials.
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Crustaceans
This highly regarded but rather touristy seafood restaurant perches on the end of Stokes Hill Wharf, where diners can enjoy the sunset and views over fresh fish, mud crabs, lobster, crocodile and oysters.
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Nirvana
Excellent Thai, Malaysian and Indian dishes are only part of the story at Nirvana – it’s also one of Darwin’s best small live-music venues for jazz and blues. It doesn’t look much from the outside, but inside the fortresslike Smith St door is an intimate warren of rooms with booth seating and Oriental decor. Enjoy a Thai green curry, nasi goreng or fish masala with your music.
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Moorish Café
Seductive aromas emanate from this divine cafe fusing North African, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern delights. It’s especially popular with the lunchtime crowd for its tantalising tapas and lunch specials, but it’s an atmospheric place for dinner, with classical Spanish guitar on Tuesday, salsa dancing on Thursday and belly dancing on Saturday night.
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La Beach
Looking for a seafood splurge? It's La Beach's speciality, as is adding a French accent to Top End water lovers. Expect pearl-meat starters, plus barra, buffalo and croc in an array of creamy sauces. And choose from a stellar selection of Australian and New Zealand wines - and Champagne, of course - to toast that magnificent over-the-water sunset.
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Go Sushi
Weekday lunchtime sees the city's office workers climb aboard the sushi train. It's yum cha Japanese style: super-fresh sushi, handrolls and sashimi (around A$4 to around A$6) delivered automatically via conveyor belt. Pluck plates as they stream past or order a full meal from the mains menu, which stays loyal to familiar standard dishes.
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Saffrron
Saffrron is Darwin’s newest Indian restaurant, a contemporary but intimate dining experience. The menu spans the subcontinent, from rich butter chicken to Kerala lamb curry or Goan beef vindaloo. There are plenty of vegetarian choices and traditional Indian sweets such as kulfi (ice cream) and lassi (yoghurt drink).
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Yots Greek Taverna
With a prime deck overlooking the marina, Yots serves up classic Greek and Mediterranean fare from saganaki and souvlaki to moussaka and spanakopita, along with barramundi and prawn dishes – the Greco barramundi is served on spinach with baked lemon potatoes and a caper sauce. There’s a cheaper lunch menu.
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Roma Bar
Roma has long been a local institution and meeting place for Lefties, literati and business types. Well away from the bustle of Mitchell St, the free wi-fi is a bonus, the coffee and juices are great, and you can get anything from muesli and eggs for breakfast to excellent focaccias and wraps for lunch.
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Ducks Nuts Bar & Grill
Slick bistro delivering clever fusion of Top End produce with that Asian/Mediterranean blend we like to claim as Modern Australian. Try the red Thai duck shank and banana curry, barra wrap or succulent lamb shanks. The attached Bar Espresso coffee shop delivers good brekkies and caffeinated brews.
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Monsoons
The old Rourke’s Drift pub has been completely remodelled into a sassy restaurant-bar with an Oriental/Indian feel – all dark wood, high-back chairs and bamboo blinds. The bar is enormous, the terrace relatively small and the fusion menu features meze plates, lamb kofta and crispy-skin duckling.
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M
Char Restaurant
In the historic Admiralty House on the Esplanade, Char is the latest addition to Darwin’s culinary landscape. The speciality here is char-grilled steaks – aged, grain-fed and cooked to perfection – but there’s also a range of seafood, a crab-and-croc lasagne and a thoughtful vegetarian menu.
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Cyclone Cafe
Possibly the best coffee in Darwin is brewed at this unassuming local haunt in Parap. The corrugated-iron decor harks back to a simpler time, the coffee is strong and aromatic (try the hypercino), and there’s some great breakfast and lunch fare such as croissants, burritos and cheese melts.
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Buzz Café
This chic bar-restaurant furnished in Indonesian teak and Mt Bromo lava has a super multilevel deck overlooking the marina and makes a lovely, sunny spot for a lazy lunch and a few drinks. Meals are Mod Oz, with some excellent salads and dishes to share. The men’s toilets reveal all.
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Tim’s Surf ‘n’ Turf
Tim’s is a long-standing Darwin diner where you can enjoy good-value seafood, steak, schnitzels and pasta in a relaxed, quiet setting – it’s squirrelled away in a city backstreet. Lunch is great value with all meals at $12.50.
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Rendezvous Cafe
The laksa achieves legend status at this institution for Thai and Malaysian cuisine, tucked away in a quiet arcade off Smith St Mall. The menu is also flexible enough to provide a bacon and eggs breakfast and good coffee.
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Relish
Hip hole-in-the-wall cafe with a good dose of acoustic music, local artworks and magazines. Gourmet melts, ciabattas, focaccias and salads dominate the blackboard and there’s good coffee and spicy chai.
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Seadogs
It may not front the marina, but the meals are cheaper at this popular local restaurant specialising in pizza, pasta, risotto and a few prawn and calamari dishes.
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Indian Cafe
Cheap and cheerful, this hole-in-the-wall curry joint has $7.50 two-curries-and-rice meal deals, eat in or take away.
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