Hayman Island Resort

A Luxury Seafood Dining Adventure
Part 2

by Martha Hollis

Executive chef, Peter Schaumburg, originally classically trained in European Culinary tradition, has gone Australian with no limits on his culinary openness. His goal is to push Australia’s cuisine nearer and nearer to haute capturing the Pacific Rim flavors using

Australia’s incredible seafood and native products.

In the Oriental Seafood Restaurant with its quiet gardens with ponds and waterfalls we started with Thai Prawns on a bed of glass noodles and sashimi expertly carved from fresh tuna, Tasmanian salmon and coral trout. For the main course I opted for the locally caught Whole Live Mud Crab served Singaporean style with hot chili and tomato sauce. Other cooking styles for these plate-sized crustaceans included Malaysian with black pepper sauce, Thai with red curry and lemongrass, or Cantonese with black bean and spring onion. This is a hands-on affair, requiring huge linen napkins for your own protection.

La Trattoria with its perky red-checked Italian tablecloths and live music was another excuse to sample seafood starting off with a warm red snapper and asparagus salad with scented lemon oil. We shared a marinara pizza topped with calamari, prawns, scallops and tuna and then devoured lightly sauced linguine blessed with the sea’s bounty of grilled seafoods and a salmon fillet on balsamic vinegar scented cannellini beans. Dining is al fresco just a net’s throw from the sea.