Port Noarlunga restaurant Hortas: Great food, fantastic location
A beachside restaurant not too far from town makes the most of its stunning location, writes Simon Wilkinson.
Food & Wine
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The little town of Port Noarlunga is full of happy memories. Just far enough away from suburbia to feel like an adventure, but close enough so the drive doesn’t become a drag, it is custom-built for family daytrips and longer holidays.
The beach is rarely crowded, the jetty productive for anglers and the reef close enough to shore to snorkel in relative safety. On a late winter afternoon that puts the sun into Sunday, this seaside scene is guaranteed to lift the spirits – particularly when viewed from the elevated perch of Hortas.
Cleverly integrated into the upper floor of a building that is also home to the local lifesaving club, Hortas has one of the best restaurant settings along the metro coastline and, unlike a few of its brethren, doesn’t let it go to waste.
Things already look promising a few steps inside the front door. To the left, an acoustic guitarist strums away in the casual lounge area. In front of us, whole fish (gar and sole) glisten in the chiller cabinet. And, to the right, the sea is such a deep, sparkling sapphire blue that eating something with at least a vague connection to it makes absolute sense.
Owner Filipe Horta understands this and, coming from Portugal, a country where the ocean is always close at hand, has pushed to make this focus stronger since he opened nine years ago.
While space out on the deck will soon be in demand, for now the bi-fold doors are kept shut and dining is limited to an interior space that retains a touch of formality. Tables are covered in proper cloths, not squares of paper. Seats are well padded. The birthday boy in our family gathering is made to feel special, as should be the case when you are turning 90.
Looking across the room, it seems we’re not the only ones celebrating and the seafood platter, a two-person feast including oysters, prawns and Moreton Bay bug, is a popular pick at $142.
The other option, and one I would recommend, is to graze through parts of the menu that are not quite as extravagant.
Kick off with a selection of “petiscos”, the Portuguese version of tapas. Salted cod (or baccala) is reconstituted and whipped up with potato to make the creamy, mild-flavoured filling for a fish cake that should have mass appeal. Chorizo with a welcome touch of chilli heat is grilled, cut into chunks and tossed through a tangle of sweet roasted pepper strips and onion. The same sausage features with bocconcini in the well-judged stuffing for a crumbed mushroom that has enough oomph to more than hold its own.
A separate entree list is dominated by seafood, including a fish chowder.
A quartet of sardines are coated head to tail in a parsley-flecked crumb and lined up on a plate as if they are synchronised swimmers. Breaking the crust and removing two neat fillets requires some skilful surgery but the little fish has buckets of flavour, particularly when matched with a tomato and caper salsa.
Hortas’ signature dish is the Portuguese specialty “cataplana”, a name that refers to the wok-like metal dish in which it is both cooked and served. The lid is lifted at the table and, once the steam clears, reveals a deep pool of paprika and garlic scented tomato broth strewn with a collection of seafood that looks as if it could have been tossed ashore in a winter storm.
Various limbs of blue swimmer crab sit on top of a heap of plump, sweet winter mussels that are rightly given the most real estate, while digging deeper turns up cubes of barramundi, unremarkable prawn meat and Goolwa pipis. A few slices of charred bread help to mop up.
Filipe reckons that by summer he will have half a dozen or so fish varieties but for now a pair of gar, cleverly dissected so head and tail are still attached to butterflied fillets, perfectly fit the day’s brief. The delicate white flesh needs nothing more than its buttery pan juices, though a garlicky dressing off to the side is certainly good on the salad. One downside is a basket of fries that have gone droopy.
Seafood not your bag? I can report a saltbush lamb shank with mash is a monumental meal, and the chicken and mushroom pot pie generates positive noises across the table.
For dessert, a picture-perfect fondant produces a decadent ooze of chocolate lava when broken open, while crème catalana nails the custard but its thick toffee lid could do nasty things to your teeth.
Come the warmer months Filipe is hoping to again open a seasonal downstairs bar and put sun lounges out on a specially licensed section of the beach. Another reason to say “bring on summer”.
HORTAS
2 Saltfleet Street, Port Noarlunga
8326 1777; hortas.com.au
OWNER Filipe and Paula Horta
CHEF Geoff Skelton
FOOD Portuguese / Mediterranean
SMALL $8.20-$19.90
MAIN $23.90-$142 (for two)
DESSERT $16.50
DRINKS A few Spanish and Portuguese imports sprinkled through a wine list of mostly familiar local names.
OPEN LUNCH Wed-Sun; DINNER Wed-Sat