Sunshine Coast’s Sole impresses with its great value seafood

A new restaurant in a somewhat obscure location just a short stroll from the beach is making its mark with a great-value seafood menu.

The Signature Sole Meuniere dish with grilled broccolini, sugar-loaf wedge salad and crispy kipfler potato sides at Sole restaurant. Picture: Lachie Millard

If you can tell a lot about an establishment by its chips, then you quickly learn that Sole Restaurant is remarkably generous, given its voluminous serves of well-seasoned, shoestring fries.

The restaurant is a short stroll back from the beach, tucked away in the Town of Seaside development at Marcoola on the Sunshine Coast and it’s surprising to find a quality restaurant in what is, in retail terms, a rather obscure location. But here it is offering up great-value seafood in a relaxed setting.

The traditional fish and chips are a keenly priced $24, with the dory fillet clad in a light, golden, crunchy batter made with Heads of Noosa beer, and served with a mountain of the aforementioned shoestring fries and homemade tartare sauce. Barramundi is an option if grilled fish is your preference.

Outdoor seating at Sole restaurant at Marcoola on the Sunshine Coast. Picture: Lachie Millard

Sole was opened last year by David and Sarah Nash, who also own a Mooloolaba cafe, The Velo Project, which has been a hit over the past 10 years. Heading the kitchen is Tom Staal whose CV includes stints at Harry’s on Buderim, Spirit House and the Long Apron.

The venue, which had been a Vietnamese restaurant, has a clean-cut, casual feel, with a deck out the front edged by a hedge and adjacent to parkland.

Service is friendly and efficient and the kitchen has dishes well-timed.

Entrees run from marinated olives to house-made focaccia and oysters and then segues into Mooloolaba king prawn miang ($6 each), with the steamed crustaceans wrapped in a betel leaf with mar hor, lime, chilli and fresh herbs.

The reef fish Ceviche entree at Sole restaurant at Marcoola. Picture: Lachie Millard

There’s also reef fish ceviche or crispy Berkshire pork belly braised in masterstock with grilled pineapple, Thai herb salad and pineapple molasses.

There’s an unusual but appealing seafood version of the Italian pasta favourite, shellfish rigatoni carbonara, with Moreton Bay bug, guanciale, Mooloolaba king prawns, confit egg yolk, bottarga, pecorino and sea parsley ($28/$44) and it works a treat.

At the heart of the menu is the restaurant’s signature, its namesake sole meuniere ($36). The classic French sauce is a popular way to serve flat fish such as sole, with the whole fish pan-fried in the burnt butter and lemon concoction, flecked with capers and generously offered with a choice of two sides from the list of crispy kipflers, grilled broccolini, shoestring fries and sugar-loaf wedge salad.

The delicately flavoured fish is beautifully cooked with its tangy sauce, it just requires a bit of diligence and care with bone removal, which is a downside of these fish but in this case, it’s well worth it.

Sole Restaurant at Marcoola on the Sunshine Coast. Picture: Lachie Millard

Fish of the day ($36), barramundi on this occasion, is not an enormous portion but is successfully glammed up with a harmonious combination of parsley puree, Coffin Bay oyster foam, fondant kipfler potatoes and parsley and watercress salad. Seafood aside, main courses include salt-baked beetroot with goat’s cheese ricotta or chargrilled jerk chicken.

Desserts keep it simple with key lime pie with white rum chantilly cream and finger lime, crema catalia, seasonal fruit sorbet or a cheeseboard.

The drinks list is straightforward to suit the locale and seafood focus, with beers such as Heads of Noosa Japanese lager, Eumundi pale ale, 14 white wines, many available by the glass, from Tai Tira sauvignon blanc $15/$65 to a 2020 La Crema chardonnay from California’s Sonoma Coast ($120).

Takeaway is also an option with freshly shucked oysters, the fish and chips at $18, salt and pepper squid, sugar loaf wedge salad and key lime pie. And Sunday afternoons there’s a snack and drinks special running from 3pm.

This is a good-value, low-key establishment with quality fare and service that is an asset for lucky locals and tourists alike.

Sole Restaurant

10 Seaward Lane, Marcoola Beach

5221 5646

solerestaurant.com.au

Open

Thu-Sat 12-9pm
Sun 12-7pm

Must trydish

Sole meuniere

Verdict

Food 3.5

Service 3.5

Ambience 3.5

Value 4.5

Overall 3.5/5

delicious.com.au/eatout