Noosa

Surf-school pavilion named after a Queensland longboard town, doing proper shared plates on the sand.

Noosa borrows its name from the Australian surf village and takes the reference seriously: the First Wave surf school runs out of the same stretch of sand, the room is woodsy with big white sofas, and the whole place carries that easy longboard rhythm from breakfast at nine to the last round at midnight. The kitchen is the reason it makes this chapter, though. Instead of the standard pavilion card it runs shared dining in the proper sense, plates smaller and cheaper than mains, built for covering the table: ceviche, bao buns with duck or chicken, queso fundido, ribs that fall apart on schedule. It is the format every beach club claims and few actually cook for, and readers who eat this coast weekly rate the food among the best on the boulevard. Rent a lounger for the day and let lunch escalate; the kitchen can keep up with the ambition.

Order the ceviche and the duck bao first, then keep the shared plates coming until the sun is low.

Photo: Noosa Zandvoort

Photo: Noosa Zandvoort