Dining review: Manly 16ft Skiff Club

The food at Manly 16ft Skiff Club comes with a side order of amazing water views.

Harissa roast chicken salad. Photos Adam Yip.

• Cocktails shake up summer
• No caffeine in these lattes

CLUB food has been given an extensive reboot right across the state.

Club food has gone competitive too. Manly Skiffies achieved a first this year by making the finals of ClubsNSW Chef’s Table competition.

Club staples like chicken schnitzel were off the menu for the competition.

Goan fish curry.

Executive chef Brooks Mayman (who has recently left the club) and sous chef Timirkumar Patel spent six months putting together a creative three-course meal which featured Skull Island prawns and samphire bisque, paperbark smoked Macleay Valley rabbit and single origin chocolate.

This competitive edginess comes on the back of a makeover at the Manly Cove club two years ago.

The $1.6 million upgrade has given the club a new outside bar, kitchen, bathrooms, timber decking, roofing and furniture. Think nautical but with Hamptons elegance.

And it now has a menu to match. Yes, there are the burgers and pizzas, and chicken schnitzel does appear on the regular menu, but it’s also great to see clubs like the Skiffies pushing boundaries with more imaginative food that’s not just reserved for cooking competitions.

Cider-battered fish and chips.

Take the weekly $15 a head curry night, when dishes like goat curry have become a talking point.

Curry fans also have an aromatic Goan fish curry on the menu. This dish comes with rice, paddadum and pickled relish. It certainly seems to be one of the more popular lunchtime orders on a sunny but breezy Saturday.

Flathead and chips is another favourite. Done the Skiff Club way, it is given a twist and battered in cider, not beer before being plated up with chunky chips and a chunky tartare.

With waterfront views, seafood always works — whether it is a seafood platter of spanner crab, champagne lobster, kingfish sashimi, oysters, prawns and clams — or a reworked salad like tuna niçoise.

Manly 16ft Skiff Club’s bar.

This classic has been given a modern update. Slices of rare ruby heard-crusted tuna sit on crunchy whole green beans, salty anchovies, olives, shaved egg, Roma tomatoes and halved chat potatoes.

I’m not crazy about the artichoke cream and balsamic glaze, but it’s a pretty, fresh and light dish that shouts summer. It works well with a glass of rose too — French of course.

A taste of summer, nothing like at mojito.

Essentials

What: Manly 16ft Skiff Club

Where: Cnr E Esplanade and Stuart Street, Manly

Phone: [phone]

Food availability: Weekdays, lunch, noon -3pm; dinner from 5pm; weekends, from noon

Go for: Goan fish curry, $26; harissa roast chicken salad, $25, pizzas from $20 and burger and fries $20

Tell me more: Join the club for $100, then the annual fee is $80

Bottom line: $81 for two with drinks