The Sunshine Coast restaurant sure to be a crowd-pleaser
With its relaxed menu, family friendly setting and casual approach, this coastal restaurant has broad appeal
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FISH and chips? Yes, of course. Some locally produced drinks options? Certainly. Decent kids’ meals? There’s a choice of four. Plenty of space? Yes, there’s inside and outside sections and the restaurant adjoins an attractive, flat, lawn-carpeted town square that’s studded with shady trees.
Pitchfork at Peregian Beach ticks all the boxes for a seaside favourite; the reliability of its offering and its constancy at the root of its appeal.
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After months of COVID torpor, the square at the heart of this village, which lies between the Sunshine Coast’s Coolum Beach and Noosa Heads, is like the rest of the state, finding its feet again. The restaurants and cafes around the square are seemingly filled to the current quotas. There’s a background swell of conversation, laughter, kids running about on the grass, a sense of joy after months of gloom.
Pitchfork, owned by chefs Kim and Craig Galea, opened in 2010 and then expanded its premises three years later. They launched with a relaxed, confident bistro style of food and have stuck with it.
Rather than being divided into courses, the menu is one list with simple starters – such as green olives stuffed with merguez sausage, oysters or perhaps taramasalata with bread – then moving on to tuna carpaccio or ricotta and parmesan ravioli with beef ragu, smoked quail with braised cabbage, the back-by-popular-demand duck pie, and eye fillet.
Beer on tap includes Hazy IPA from Sunshine Coast outfit Terella Brewing at North Arm, or a tipple from Boiling Pot Brewing Co at Noosa Heads.
The seven white wines include a Robert Channon verdelho from the Granite Belt and the reds top out price-wise with an Eastern Peake pinot noir at $90. The by-the-glass choices are reasonably priced from $8.
Baked goat’s cheese dressed up with truffled honey and walnuts comes with crispy toast ($10) for scooping and is simple and appealing with its forthright flavours. Fried squid ($12) with a generous blob of aioli and a wedge of lemon is a little chewy but not enough to stop us hoeing in.
Seaside equals oceanic offerings so we order the fish and chips, which turns out to be lightly battered John Dory with crisp chips ($26), and a fillet of barramundi strewn with pipis that’s in a lipsmacking buttery garlic, chilli and lemon sauce ($38).
By this point the lone waitress is run off her feet tending to the allowable 20 diners spread around the house, who all seem to need something simultaneously. With takeaway an option, we abandon ship and head home with a slice of warm orange and almond cake with marmalade cream ($15). We could also have opted for passionfruit roulade, or choc pot with hazelnut praline and biscotti.
Pitchfork continues to offer its entire menu as takeaway, and on Fridays has been putting together family meal packs, although that may change now that the restaurant is getting busier. Post-COVID changes have also meant no lunches besides Sunday and earlier evening openings. The menu has also been tweaked to offer more medium-sized, cheaper dishes and will change more frequently.
But Pitchfork’s overall vibe is the same, serving up the same comfortable bistro foods that built its reputation. Add in warm service and a fine setting and it’s proven to be a formula for long-term success.
PITCHFORK RESTAURANT
5/4 Kingfisher Drive, Peregian Beach
5471 3697
Open Tue-Sun 12-2pm and dinner from 5pm
VERDICT
Food 3/5
Ambience 3.5/5
Service 3/5
Value 3/5
OVERALL 3/5
Must try dish: Fish with pipis