Restaurant Review fish.dining Gosford

fish.dining is going down as one of my favourite seafood restaurants. The restaurant is on Masons Parade, Fredericks Point overlooking the water. There are options to dine in or dine outside. We chose to dine upstairs in the bright and cheerful dining area overlooking the water. Our host was Dominik who not only knew the best dishes to order, his knowledge of wines is commendable.

To start we enjoyed a glass of NV Taittinger Curvee Prestige (Reims - France) 18 (glass). Once of my favourite champagnes that went extremely well with the house made bread and butter. It is not every day you are offered butter that is flavoured with smoked blue-eyed trevally! Matched with the soft doughy bread roll it was a great start to the meal.

Next up six Sydney Rock Oysters 24. Three from the Port Macquarie region and three from the South near Eden. Served with eschalot and native lime. The oysters were fresh and delicious with the Port Macquarie being more creamy and rich and the Southern variety leaving a sweet mild after taste.

Berkshire pork and fennel dumplings with soy, ginger and sichuan 24. The fennel stands out and with the spicy chilli oil there is certainly a bite in this dish. We tasted (Trimbach Reserve Pinot Noir Alsace- France 60/14) with this dish offsetting the intense flavour of the dumplings. A perfect match indeed.

Grilled Western Australian Marron in the half shell with samphire, braised heirloom carrots in cumin, lemon & her butter 44. It looks spectacular and tastes as good as it looks! 2017 Valentine Riesling (Yarra Valley 65/14) a German style of Riesling was perfect with the delicate flavours of the Marron.

Seafood stew in tomato, saffron & almond, diamond clams, king prawn and calamari 38. A rich stew, combining both tomato and a dollop of mornay sauce.

Warm salad of cauliflower, macadamia, tahini, lemon and parsley 12. I will boldy say this "if you don't like cauliflower you will now". I was amazed at the flavour of this dish, with the combined textures and the tahini sauce it was different and fabulous. The cauliflower was super tender and combined with the macadamia and Tahini sauce made a perfect balance of flavours. We also enjoyed a tasting of 2017 Oakvale Chardonnay (Hunter Valley 50/11).

Amedi chocolate fondant with sour strawberries, star anise & yogurt sorbet 16. The flavours and textures of this dessert are stunning, the richness of the chocolate fondant combined with the light tangy sorbet are a perfect match. Tantalising the tastebuds was the extra zing the sour strawberries.

Warm yuzu pdding 16. I was dining with my sister-in-law who is Japanese and when she saw yuzu pudding on the menu she was super excited. Mayu was astonished that yuzu was on the menu. Yuzu is a citrus that is grown in Japan. The pudding was presented beautifully and was soft, delicious and flavoursome. We enjoyed a sip of 2012 Baumard Carte D'Or Chenin Blanc (Loire - France) 40/12 with the desserts and you could not ask for a nicer combination. For the production of this sweet wine, Florent Baumard prefers to harvest as late as the vintage weather permits, hoping for plenty of botryitis (Noble Rot).

I enjoyed my experience at fish.dining and will return next time I am in the area. Congratulations to Cameron and Hayley Cansdell on offering a modern seafood menu with a strong focus on sustainability. fish.dining only source Australian seafood, with a focus on using wild catch seafood certified by the Marine Stewardship Council as well as some of the best farmed fish & shellfish Australia has to offer. Cameron and Hayley also own bombini in Avoca.