Why this town in Far North Queensland is a paradise for seafood lovers

It's one of six courses we eat that night, sat beneath palm trees in the tropical gardens of the degustation-only Nautilus. Out come pan-seared scallops topped with crunchy pork floss and salt and pepper cauliflowerets. Here's yellowfin tuna and hiramasa kingfish, bite-sized yet brimming with taste bombs, like smoked kewpie and toasted eschalot puree.

Nautilus opened in the 1950s, its founders a retired British spy and his aristocrat wife, a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. Port Douglas was a sleepy fishing village then, and for some time afterwards, until Christopher Skase arrived in the 1980s and put it on the map with his sprawling resort on Four Mile Beach. The Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort is where we feasted the previous night under original 1980s chandeliers in Harrisons restaurant. After our cured fish and prawns we had barramundi (again), this time cooked tandoori style and served with smoked yoghurt and octopus.

And that Moreton Bay bug? It came sweet-fleshed and unfussy, save for some vanilla butter and a squeeze of lemon, at Thala Beach resort's treetops restaurant, Ospreys. It's named for the local birds of prey who are themselves expert fishers, although I suspect the bird's-eye view from here is behind the moniker. The sweeping outlook across rustling rainforest and the glimmering Coral Sea is the perfect side to a three-course lunch. nautilus-restaurant.com.au; harrisonsrestaurant.com.au; thalabeach.com.au