Best of the Gold Coast 2019: Robina’s top four restaurants and cafes to try this autumn

Robina is bursting with delightful dining experiences if you know where to look. We’ve found four of the best restaurants and cafes the suburb has to offer.

Robina’s Eddy + Wolff restaurant: the jumbo oyster and scallion oil with roasted crushed peanuts. Picture: Jerad Williams

ROBINA is bursting with delightful dining experiences if you know where to look. Amber Macpherson has found four of the best restaurants and cafes the suburb has to offer.

Eddy and Wolff

12/217-219 Ron Penhaligon Way, Robina

Eddy + Wolf owner Thao Nguyen holding the Jumbo Oyster dish. Picture: Jerad Williams

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Eddy and Wolff co-owner Thao Nguyen says she’s still in shock at how welcoming the community have been after opening her new restaurant in Robina last month. “We didn’t know how it was going to be received, but we’ve had some amazing feedback from Robina locals,” Thao says. “I’d say 80 per cent of our customers live in Robina.” The Asian restaurant must have filled a niche in the neighbourhood, with its sophisticated dishes paying homage to Thao and her husband Vien’s childhoods growing up in Canberra. “The flavour punches in our cuisine — we’re not holding back,” Thao says. “The baby pho the bone marrow has gone off, it’s just next level. That’s an absolutely favourite. And the chargrilled king prawns — in our culture we eat the prawn head, so we’ve twice cooked the prawn head, trimmed it down and it tastes like you’re eating a prawn-flavoured chip. We like to educate people in what we do.”

Cocotte

Robina Quays Shopping Centre, 361 Robina Parkway, Robina

Cocotte. Japanese French fusion restaurant at Robina Quays. Roasted Lamb Rack. Pic Tim Marsden

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Cocotte chef Shunichi Tanabe believes it’s his duty to teach others the techniques of Japanese cooking as a way of sharing his culture. “As a Japanese chef, it’s my job to teach and show Japanese cooking skills to the public,” Shun says. The Japanese-French restaurant has hosted a handful of cooking classes for the community premises in recent months, but public demand will likely sway Shun into holding more throughout the year. Shun says diners can expect a new seasonal menu at Cocotte, with the Tokyo duck dish expected to be a cold weather winner. “Duck is very popular in the winter, I’ve just put it back on the menu,” Shun says.

Taboon

514 Christine Avenue, Robina

Robina restaurant Taboon is now serving share platters.

Taboon Cafe was a trailblazer of the share-style dining concept but it seems the Gold Coast wasn’t ready for it yet. Now in 2019, the Middle Eastern restaurant is able to fulfil its desire for bringing people together. “When we originally opened 13 years ago that’s what we wanted to do, we had a whole menu of share things,” owner Steve Isaacs says. “Now the understanding of sharing has changed on the Coast, we moved back to what we wanted to do. We try to encourage diners to put something in the middle of the table and share it Middle Eastern style.” Along with family-sized platters, Scott says some new item menus are the falafel-coated chicken with garlic sauce and fried halloumi with tahini and spicy date chutney.

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Bunnath Kitchen

East Quay Shopping Centre, 13/44 Commerce Drive, Robina

Cambodian restaurant, Bunnath Kitchen, where they serve traditional Khmer dishes, modernised just a little for the Australian palate.

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Bunnath Kitchen can lay claim to being the Gold Coast’s only Cambodian restaurant and the locals in Robina love it. The husband and wife team Bernie (Bunnath) and Ivy offer a range of authentic “Khmer” dishes, a Cambodian word for pounded spices and herbs paste that form the base of many dishes in the Asian state. Lemongrass and turmeric are big in Khmer cooking, meaning your dish will not only taste fresh, but will cleanse you from the inside as well. Cambodian cuisine is described as a blend of Thai and Vietnamese with French and Chinese influences, with not too much spice and plenty of nourishing curries. A top pick on the menu is the amok, a yellow curry of either chicken or fish.