The must-visit restaurants in Port Douglas revealed

Ask any regular visitor to the Far North Queensland holiday town of Port Douglas for advice on eating out, and they’ll likely tell you to book your restaurants when you book your flights.

During peak times such as Christmas and the winter holiday season, it’s notoriously hard to secure a table unless you strike it lucky with a cancellation or know the chef.

The Australian Good Food Guide’s Chef Hat awards use a points-based system to honour restaurants with one, two or three hats, a respected marker in the absence of Michelin stars.

In Port Douglas, six restaurants appear in the 2025 Guide, four of them within a short stroll of one another.

Not bad for a small tropical outpost with a permanent population of just 3650.

And yes, you can still wear thongs. (Your good thongs, obviously.)

Jungle Fowl

This colourful venue serves modern, Thai-inspired, farm-to-table cuisine and has this year won restaurateurs Rachael Boon and Ben Wallace their third consecutive Chef Hat award.

There’s a strong emphasis on local produce, with most ingredients grown on their four-acre farm at Oak Beach, where chickens (jungle fowl) roam among the lemongrass, galangal and betel leaf.

Expect prawn betel leaf as part of the Seasonal Thai Banquet, alongside chilli squid salad and black pepper Angus beef.

Harrisons

The flagship restaurant at the Sheraton Grand Mirage is helmed by Chef Spencer Patrick, who trained under Marco Pierre White.

It is billed as Port Douglas’s most nationally awarded restaurant. The setting is old-world glamour with chandeliers, gilded busts and lagoon views; the cuisine contemporary.

Australian with reimagined English classics infused with North Queensland flavours. The set menu tells this story through line-caught chargrilled squid, baked oysters and duck fat Brussels sprouts.

Osprey’s

Located at a resort about ten minutes south of town, Osprey’s is perched in the treetops with views of rainforest-clad mountains and the sparkling Coral Sea.

Chef Krisztian Borbas presents a seasonal menu inspired by the tropics, featuring Moreton Bay bug with vanilla butter, spicy duck leg with red curry and slow-roasted pork belly with fried scallop wontons.

Melaleuca

Opposite the picturesque St Mary’s by the Sea, this open-air eatery is run by English-born chef Adam Ion and his Korean-born wife, Namhee.

The modern Australian menu, with clear Asian influences, features soft-shell mudcrab with green pawpaw Thai salad, and pan-seared Daintree barramundi for seafood lovers; flame-grilled beef tataki and slow-braised beef cheek for meat-eaters.

With its deck built around the trunk of a fairy-lit mango tree, it’s one of Port’s prettiest dining spots.

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Abercrombie & Kent says demand for Egypt is rising sharply across its key markets, with the destination now ranking among the company’s top performing regions for 2026.

The luxury travel group reports strong year-on-year growth across the UK, US and Australia, spanning private journeys, small group itineraries and high-end celebration travel.

Some Egypt itineraries in the US market have more than doubled compared with last year, while forward bookings already extend into 2027.

Industry observers point to a renewed confidence in Egypt as a destination, underpinned by significant cultural investment and a growing appetite for deeper, more personalised travel experiences.

One of the main catalysts has been the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum, located beside the Giza Plateau.

The museum, the largest in the world dedicated to a single civilisation, brings together the full collection of Tutankhamun’s treasures for the first time and has reignited interest in Cairo as a standalone cultural destination rather than a gateway stop.

Abercrombie & Kent’s Senior Vice President, Egypt, Amr Badr, said: “The opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum has been transformative – we’ve seen a significant surge in enquiries since November, and the calibre of traveller is remarkable.

“These are culturally curious guests seeking genuine immersion rather than surface-level touring.

“They’re booking private after-hours access to the museum, arranging consultations with Egyptologists, and approaching Egypt with the same intentionality they’d bring to any major cultural pilgrimage.

“Egypt has always been extraordinary, but 2026 feels like a renaissance moment – the perfect convergence of world-class infrastructure and a new generation discovering why this civilisation has captivated humanity for millennia.”

According to Abercrombie & Kent, British travellers are increasingly pairing museum-led experiences in Cairo with classic Nile journeys, while demand is also rising for private dahabiya charters and bespoke river itineraries.

In Australia, repeat high-spend travellers are returning to Egypt for milestone celebrations, often opting for private touring and exclusive access experiences.

The company is responding with further long-term investment along the Nile. Later this year it will launch Nile Seray, a new luxury riverboat that will feature in a private journey debuting in 2026.

A second vessel has already been commissioned, signalling confidence in sustained demand for high-end river travel in the region.

Egypt occupies a central place in the company’s history. Founder Geoffrey Kent first introduced Nile cruising to the brand in the late 1970s with the SS Memnon, laying the foundations for what has since become one of its most enduring destinations.

Nile Seray is now accepting reservations for departures from October 2026, with four-night voyages priced from USD $3,125 per person.