Morgan’s Sorrento serves sustainable seafood and summer’s best dish – ‘old school’ seafood linguine
Seafood by the beach is often a crashing wave of disappointment, but this reborn peninsula bistro has turned the tide with brilliant fish and summer’s best dish - ‘old school’ seafood linguine.
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A piece of fish, flappingly fresh and expertly cooked, needing nothing but a squeeze of lemon, a few perfectly crunchy-fluffy chips and a cold glass of bracingly crisp riesling alongside to properly shine.
It’s one of summer’s greatest pleasures. Or rather, should be.
But fish and chips by the beach is usually a crashing disappointment of an indeterminate protein with all the appeal of a damp tissue covered in greasy batter and regret, with floury, forgettable chips adding up to a meal that all-but-never lives up to expectations.
But if anyone can turn the tide against frozen and imported fish in a seaside resort town this summer, it’s Paul Wilson.
The famously fastidious produce-championing chef and long-time delicious. Produce Awards judge has joined his old Melbourne Pub Group boss Julian Gerner to give Morgan’s in Sorrento a new sustainable-seafood focus.
That means fish comes with the Marine Stewardship Council’s blue tick of approval, the day’s catch served either beer battered or grilled to best show off the various species’ characteristics.
Today, a generous fillet of flathead comes in crisp, turmeric-golden batter, the fish tender and sweet, the fat chips doubling down on the seaside with a dusting of seaweed salt.
From the grill, two big slices of albacore tuna are beautifully cooked, char-marked with a line of pink inside and served with salsa verde, a pea tendril salad, mild tartare — and more of those chips.
Quality comes at a cost — the flat head is $42, the tuna $35 — but the premium produce shines bright.
While seaside summer surcharge is evident on some dishes — $28 for a few pieces of squid with a tepid Thai papaya salad is almost as outrageous as charging $8 for two bog-standard potato cakes – other plates are worth every penny.
To wit: the “old school” seafood linguine ($42). Turning the tables on the usual mound-of-pasta-hiding-a-few-prawns, this is a huge plate of top-notch seafood — large, meaty mussels, little vongole, hefty chunks of fish, calamari and loads of prawns and scallops, all swimming in a sea of butter with fresh parsley, a whack of garlic and just a few strands of pasta to hold the lot together. It’s the dish of the summer.
A generous serve of big spring bay mussels in a Genoese pesto sauce is likewise mop-the-bowl good ($24), while terrific fish cakes are an exemplary example of the species ($24).
You’ll have to order at the bar (remember your table number), which means all food comes at once – tricky if negotiating a couple of courses – but it’s great for kids, with their meals flying fast from the kitchen. The mini fish and chips ($15) got two thumbs up from Mr Three, while the seven-year-old was defeated by the main menu beef burger ($24) with pickles and beetroot and patty cooked well done.
Peninsula wines, such as Quealy’s excellent pinot gris and a dry, blushing rose from Portsea Estate, at around $12 glass/$55 bottle keep the booze-miles suitably low, with Lion taking care of the beers (Little Creatures, Furphy) on tap.
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Inside are long communal tables filled with families and doors that open to let the summertime in, but snag one of the tables out on the Esplanade to best take in the beautiful bay vista beyond.
Morgan’s is not cheap, but it’s cheerful. And for fish by the beach, it’s hard to beat.
MORGAN’S
1 Esplanade Sorrento
5984 3121
Open: Lunch and dinner daily
GO-TO DISH: SEAFOOD LINGUINE