Book early for a table at Salsa Bar and Grill in Port Douglas

In tropical far-north Queensland’s glitziest jewel, there’s one dish that has food lovers coming back for more.

The beach at Port Douglas on one of those postcard picture-perfect days. Photo: Martin Valigursky.

THE PLACE

For southerners planning a holiday to tropical far north Queensland’s glitziest jewel, Port Douglas, the first step is to book flights, ­naturally.

The second step is not so ­obvious.

The ones in the know will book a table at Salsa Bar and Grill next.

Such is the restaurant’s reputation, built across two decades, it’s consistently booked out well in ­advance during winter’s peak tourist season. The humidity drops, it’s dry, balmy and bright, and locals whinge when they have to don a jumper for a couple of weeks.

And only in the tropics could you turn up to one of the region’s best restaurants in shorts.

About an hour’s drive north of Cairns, along a spectacular stretch of serpentine, oceanfront highway, Salsa is the epitome of casual chic, with whitewashed interiors and sea views from the wrap­around veranda.

And that’s how Salsa chef Goran Zonai likes it. Originally from Germany’s Black Forest and trained in the French tradition, the 45-year-old has been at Salsa for nearly 14 years and in Australia for 16.

When he first ­arrived in the far north, it was something of a culture shock.

“It’s just a different world, from the Black Forest to Port Douglas,” Zonai says. “Back there, cooking French food, it was beautiful food but it was always the same cooking styles; you sear the meat, finish it with butter, and then rest it. It’s all the same. But in Australia there’s Japanese influence, Chinese, everything is mixed up. I never saw fresh turmeric before (I arrived), even fresh ginger was a rarity. Coming to Port Douglas, it was like starting a new life as a chef.”

THE PRODUCE

Zonai is now well across contemporary Australian food trends, and local seafood, cheese, meat and fruit from far north Queensland shape his frequently changing menu.

“The newest one I love is buffalo veal from one of the dairies at Millaa Millaa (on the Atherton Tablelands, southwest of Port Douglas),” Zonai says.

“We’ve got Daintree Chocolate (from the Daintree rainforest); I just use the dark, bitter one in one of our desserts, the Chocolate Nemesis. We serve it at lunch with blood orange sorbet and fairy floss.”

Elsewhere there are tiny green peppercorns, still attached to their delicate twigs, used as a garnish on savoury dishes. Zonai makes his own cheese with milk from Mungalli Creek Dairy, and there are local pawpaws, sweet pineapples and luscious, abundant mangoes.

But the dish that keeps them coming back is the linguine ­peperoncino with freshwater redclaw crayfish from the Atherton Tablelands.

It has been on the menu at Salsa since day dot. “People are very upset if we run out,” the chef says. Because sometimes demand does exceed supply; that’s the reality of dealing with small producers.

Up on the tablelands, farmer John Jennings has been supplying Salsa with live freshwater crayfish for nearly two decades. The 81-year-old’s father was one of the ­pioneering tobacco growers in the rolling hills around Mareeba, but when that industry died ­Jennings Jr needed to find a new income source. “I knew nothing about it but I decided to give redclaw a go,” Jennings says.

Decades later, he has 10 Olympic swimming pool-sized freshwater ponds each holding about 10,000 juvenile redclaw, which are native to the warm estuaries of the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Salsa, to which he supplies up to 50kg a week, is his chief customer.

“I’m coming up to 82 very shortly and it’s getting a bit harder to get down into the ponds and into the mud to get the redclaw,” says Jennings. “But I’ve got a grandson learning the ropes and he’ll probably take over.”

As part of the Taste Port Douglas food and wine festival, Salsa will be hosting the Big Taste: Locavore dinner with guest chefs Alastair McLeod and Matt Golinski on Saturday August 13. More: tasteportdouglas.com.