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.

You can read the full story here.

Australia trails Singapore and Malta in a new Commonwealth index, while national testing shows fewer than four in 10 Year 10 students meet the standard for digital literacy.

Australia has ranked third among 56 Commonwealth countries for youth AI readiness, with researchers estimating that artificial intelligence could lift the level of Australian GDP by $80.6 billion after a decade under their middle scenario.

The Ayre Think Tank released the index at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua and Barbuda. Australia scored 71 out of 100, behind Singapore on 77.6 and Malta on 75. The United Kingdom followed closely on 70.8, with Canada fifth on 70.2. Only 15 countries reached the study’s benchmark of 53.

What the $80.6 billion figure measures

The researchers applied International Monetary Fund estimates for broad groups of economies to Australia’s 2025 GDP. The resulting scenarios put the potential lift in Australian GDP after 10 years at between $40.9 billion and $120.3 billion, with $80.6 billion representing the midpoint.

The figures describe how much larger the economy could be at the end of the period under each scenario. They represent a change in the level of GDP in year 10.

Digital literacy falls as schools roll out AI tools

Australia scored 8.7 out of 10 for access to technology and 7.5 for digital, data, media and AI capability. Separate national testing found that 37 per cent of Year 10 students met the proficient standard for information and communications technology literacy in 2025, down from 46 per cent in 2022. About one in 10 students reported receiving substantial teaching on AI-related tasks. National assessment results

The report points to two state initiatives aimed at building those skills. Queensland began rolling out an AI education platform in state schools in 2026, while Victoria introduced free specialist training for workers looking to develop AI skills or move into related roles.

The index draws on 1,128 sources and examines the conditions facing people aged 15 to 29, including access to technology, education and pathways into work. Australia had usable data for 76 of the 102 indicators used in the rankings. The researchers found too little comparable evidence to score an eighth area covering critical judgement and people’s ability to exercise control over AI systems.

Professor C. Justin Robinson, campus principal of the University of the West Indies’ Five Islands Campus, said young people should be equipped to question and improve AI tools and supported in building alternatives suited to their needs.

The report calls for affordable access to technology, more practical education and stronger links between training, employment and entrepreneurship. It also urges governments and educators to support AI tools suited to local languages and give young people ways to challenge automated decisions.