Sassi Port Douglas: Fresh angle on fish
If you want the full seafood line-up, cooked by someone who knows what the hell they’re doing, then you want Sassi.
Port Douglas is rising fast in the resort town restaurant stakes, but it’s no Noosa — yet.
The flash new Hemingway’s Brewery, one of those all-purpose affairs for grazing, lazing, dining and drinking, is activating the long underused Reef Marina precinct; the annual Taste Port Douglas food festival is upping the town’s profile; and the rumour mill is tipping a serious offer for Sheraton Mirage. Meanwhile, foodies in the know head to Zipangu, a pocket-sized Japanese in a nondescript building on the edge of town, for some of the best and freshest eel you’ll find anywhere in Oz.
But this is the tropics, by the sea. You want the full seafood line-up, cooked by someone who knows what the hell they’re doing. You want somewhere like Sassi Cucina & Bar.
The pitch: The husband-and-wife team of Tony and Di Sassi have been back at the restaurant they founded (in 2001) only since 2013, after a six-year interregnum. Perhaps that’s why the place still feels fresh, not formulaic. The offer is the same as ever: Italian, mainly seafood and pasta, simple and sophisticated, in a smart, indoor-outdoor setting of bare tables and plantation shutters. Prices are highish, in the manner of restaurants cutting no corners on prestige seafood: by way of a pre-emptive strike, a note at the bottom of the one-page menu reads (translated from the Italian), “He who wants to eat freshly caught fish should not have a tight purse.”
The reality: Tony has stepped back from the pans these days, though he still helps make the pasta. Seems the master has taught his apprentices well; if there’s better, more intelligent cooking in the Port I can’t wait to try it. Meanwhile, Di directs a retinue of young Euro waitstaff with grace and efficiency. On an unseasonally cool Sunday night, pre-holiday season, the place is seeing healthy trade.
The cuisine: There are certain rules to piscine cuisine, and Sassi isn’t about to mess with them. So the specials board sees much of the action, the pasta dishes are classics and the seafood component is dished up with a generous hand. Which is not to say the cooking is predictable; an entree of excellent, sashimi-grade yellowfin tuna, marinated in lime juice, olive oil and chilli, then briefly seared on the chargrill and plated on wakame dressed with white balsamic and mustard, is typical of the house style.
Drinks: A longstanding association between the owners and Gippsland winemaker Phillip Jones is the reason the house wines here — chardonnay, rose, pinot noir — are from Bass Phillip. And all at $12 a glass. Reason to be gleeful.
Highlights: The opening gambit: marinated olives, terrific bread and a dipper of extra virgin olive oil, unbidden and free of charge. A special of Moreton Bay bugs — from the Gulf of Carpentaria and the biggest this southerner has seen, more like lobster in size — served in the shell, with parsley butter; as good as it gets, folks. The tagliatelle nero con gamberi, housemade squid ink pasta with local prawns, basil, lemon, chilli, cherry tomatoes and “a splash” of white wine and cream. And the kids’ fish and chips, because of course you want your kid to know what really fresh, wild barramundi tastes like.
Lowlights: A quibble: mixed chargrilled vegetables (capsicum, zucchini, eggplant and onion) are nice enough, but there’s not enough of them and that combined with fairly rich olive oil dressing puts them closer to the category of giardiniera.
Will I need a food dictionary? Not at all; all the Italian dish names are translated; even the likes of arancini and baccala mantecato. No one is assuming anything here.
The damage: He who wants to eat freshly caught fish … If you’re a fish nut and/or a pasta nut, you’ll think Sassi represents pretty good value.
Sassi.com.au