The iconic Qld restaurant dishes you must eat

From an apple pie in country Queensland to a $75 bowl of pasta, here are the state’s restaurant dishes that have reached icon status.

Prawn Star chef Marco Bernardi. Picture: Brendan Radke

From an apple pie in country Queensland to a $75 bowl of pasta, we’ve found the state’s most iconic restaurant dishes.

This is the fare that has become loved by locals and tourists alike, raved about by food critics, been featured in magazines across the country and declared a must-try for any diner.

Making the list is the Prawn Star in Cairns – a fleet of retired fishing trawlers turned into restaurants where diners can eat prawns plucked straight from the waters only a few kilometres away.

Owner Danny Moore said the boats serve about two tonne of prawns per week, alongside the likes of bugs, crayfish, mud crabs, oysters and salmon.

“They (diners) just love the whole experience because they’re sitting in a marina in the water and they’re eating fresh seafood and they can smell the prawns cooking,” he said.

The business has been running for eight years and has recently expanded to include a Prawn Star at Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast to try to echo some of the magic of the Cairns experience.

Another Queensland culinary icon are the zucchini chips at Brisbane Greek restaurant Hellenika in Fortitude Valley, with thousands of bowls been sold each week of the crispy battered veg.

“They’re just yum,” said Hellenika owner Simon Gloftis.

“I go through stages where I think I never want to see another zucchini chip ever again, then someone orders them and I end up eating the whole fricken bowl.”

Prawns on the Prawn Star, Cairns

“It’s not just a restaurant, it’s a tourist destination,” says Prawn Star owner Danny Moore of his fleet of four retired fishing trawlers converted into floating eateries in the Cairns Marina. Aboard these old boats, diners are served the freshest of local prawns and bugs, caught by fishers who call the marina home, as well as a feast of other ocean delights like oysters, crayfish and salmon from some of the best suppliers in Australia. With room for 110 patrons across the fleet, the boats have kitchens where diners can watch their meal being cooked, or simply eat things fresh with a Prawn Star beer.

Bug rolls at Rick Shores, Burleigh Heads

Moreton Bay bug roll at Rick Shores, Burleigh Heads

Arguably Queensland’s most well-known dish, the Moreton Bay bug roll at Rick Shores has won national acclaim featuring a soft brioche bun wrapped around a tail of beer-battered, deep-fried Moreton Bay bug with a bug meat mayo and sriracha mayo for a little heat. No doubt the stunning location is part of the snack’s appeal, with the restaurant perched on the edge of the ocean, the sea within arms reach. In fact, the roll was deemed so great by film director Baz Luhrmann he claims the opportunity to potentially eat it every day was what led him to film his epic biopic Elvis on the Gold Coast.

Zucchini chips at Hellenika in Fortitude Valley

Zucchini chips at Hellenika, Fortitude Valley

Featuring thin oblongs of zucchini coated in the finest of batters, deep fried until golden and crisp, then shaken with salt, Hellenika’s zucchini chips have made eating vegetables a pleasure. The Greek eatery inside the hugely popular Calile Hotel serves thousands of bowls of the courgettes each week to travellers and locals with their status and appeal going global.

Otto’s champagne lobster pasta

Champagne lobster spaghettini at Otto, South Brisbane

When Otto head chef Will Cowper was first introduced to the relatively unheard of Champagne lobster, he knew he had to do something special with the sweet, delicate crustacean.

Caught as a bycatch near Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast, the crayfish tastes like a hybrid of bug, prawn and lobster making it ideal for a pasta dish. And so Cowper created a spaghettini with garlic, chilli, olive oil, white wine, stock and lemon butter, which has gone on to become the restaurant’s signature and an icon of Queensland despite its hefty price tag of $55 for an entree and $75 for a main.

Sutton's Farm and Juices’ apple pie in Thulimbah

Apple pie at Sutton’s Farm, Thulimbah

It’s a long way to come for a slice of apple pie, but tourists are only happy to when the pastry creation is as good as it is at Sutton’s. This apple orchard in the picturesque town of Thulimbah near Stanthorpe serves hundreds of its handmade pies each week from its tiny cafe in a humble shed. Just like grandma used to make, the pies use apples from their own orchard as well as those from within a 10km radius, ensuring the product is always fresh and local.

Gambaro Seafood Restaurant's famous lobster mornay

Lobster mornay at Gambaro Seafood, Petrie Terrace

Gambaro Seafood Restaurant has been a Brisbane institution for more than three decades, and perhaps just as famous as the restaurant itself, is its iconic lobster or crayfish mornay.

The retro dish loved by the late founder Michael Gambaro has remained a constant on the menu, with plump, Aussie crustacean smothered in rich bechamel sauce under a blanket of grilled cheese.

Fish and chips at Charis Seafood, Labrador

Sure, there are thousands of places to score fish and chips across Queensland, but Charis’ seaside location and reputation as being the state’s largest seafood retailer is what earns this place icon status. Customers can choose from one of the great value combo meals with a variety of fried favourites, or add in fresh seafood from the market’s sprawling cabinets jammed with the likes of scallops, crabs, lobsters, prawns, oysters, mussels and more.

Roti at Sum Yung Guys, Noosa

Described by Courier-Mail food critic Alison Walsh as a “fat roll of deep-fried, salty, carby joy”, the roti at Sunshine Coast contemporary Asian eatery Sum Yung Guys has become one of the restaurant’s most ordered dishes. In fact, they sell about 35,000 of the bubbly breads each year, ready to be dipped into and swiped through their bowl scraping curries. And at just $7.50 for a large serve, it’s an icon everyone can afford.

Doughnuts from Kenilworth Country Bakery in Kenilworth

Doughnuts at Kenilworth Country Bakery, Kenilworth

In the quiet country town of Kenilworth on the Sunshine Coast, crowds line the blink-and-you-miss-it main street on weekends for one thing: doughnuts.

The bakery has become a tourist and instagrammer hotspot for its yeasted creations, with flavours such as Golden Gaytime, Iced Vovo and pistachio caramel, and their signature 1kg doughnut. The fried sweets have even proved so popular the owners had to open a second bakery next door for their savoury fare, with a whole shop just dedicated to the doughnuts; while another outlet has opened in Mooloolaba to meet demand.

Beccofino’s duck ragu

Duck ragu at Beccofino, Teneriffe

With chunks of duck cooked into submission twirled around tomato-stained al dente pasta, the signature duck ragu at Brisbane’s Beccofino in Teneriffe has been drawing in customers for almost 20 years.

A mainstay of the authentic Italian menu, it’s become a must order for their multi-millionaire customers as well as those with far more conservative bank balances.