The best restaurants in Cairns right now

Cairns dining has historically traded on its tourism volume rather than its culinary ambition, but the past five years have seen a genuine shift — a generation of chefs who have trained in Melbourne, Sydney, and internationally are returning to the tropics and creating restaurants worthy of the extraordinary local produce that Far North Queensland provides.

Ochre Restaurant

Ochre on Shields Street is Cairns's most established fine dining room and the restaurant that has done the most to create a market for native and tropical Australian ingredients in Far North Queensland. The emu, the kangaroo, the crocodile, and the reef fish that appear on the menu are sourced with a seriousness that justifies the premium.

The Conservatory

The rooftop restaurant at the Crystalbrook Riley hotel delivers the best upscale dining setting in Cairns — the tropical gardens, the views across the inlet, and the menu that makes intelligent use of FNQ produce in a tropical-modern format that matches the setting.

Prawn Star

The floating prawn trawler restaurant in the Cairns Marina is one of Australia's most original dining experiences — you board a working prawn trawler moored in the marina, select your prawns by weight, and consume them with beer and bread in the most honest seafood environment imaginable. It is deeply unpretentious and completely excellent.

Salt House

The waterfront restaurant and bar on Pierpoint Road capitalises on its position on the inlet to deliver an outdoor dining experience with Cairns' most attractive setting. The seafood — reef fish, coral trout, Coral Sea prawns — is as fresh as anywhere in Australia.

Coffee and brekkie in Cairns

Caffeinate in the CBD and Fusion Organics in the Cairns City Place set the specialty coffee standard in the city, and both serve breakfast menus that reflect the tropical ingredient environment — tropical fruit, locally baked bread, and the egg dishes that the backpacker population has kept excellent by demanding them at 7am every day.

This article was compiled by AI from the sources linked above and screened before publishing. See our editorial standards.