Jan 19 2011

The Spirit House Restaurant

For many years we have intended to visit the Spirit House Restaurant, at Yandina on the Sunshine Coast.
Today we learnt that it was worth waiting for.

The Spirit House Restaurant was established in 1995 by Helen and Peter Brierty. The buildings are pavilion style, separated by walkways, which all open onto the exquisite tropical garden.

“We wanted to recreate tropical Asia. We created this land from nothing; it was just a very bare paddock when we moved here. We planted every tree, every flower and dug all the ponds,” says the owner, Helen.

As well as the restaurant, there is a popular cooking school on site. Helen and Annette Fear (the original chef) have published a number of cookbooks,. Some recipes from the school are available here.

The menu is innovative, contemporary Thai. The ingredients are delivered daily to the kitchen door by local growers – ginger, lemongrass, tumeric, chillies, kaffir lime are just a few of the Asian ingredients grown in the area.

The ‘signature’ dish is Whole Crispy Fish with Tamarind Chili Sauce. We also had 

Chargrilled Beef Ribs with Sweet Chili Dressing & Orange Mint Salad 
Lemon Grass Curry of Chicken with Kaffir Lime 
Pineapple Fried Rice in Egg Net with Cashews & Vietnamese Mint 
BBQ Tamarind Duck with Ginger Lychee Glaze & Crispy Egg Noodles 
and a Watermelon and Coconut Salad. 

The menu is available here.
http://www.spirithouse.com.au/restaurant/menu

It was a magnificent meal.

I think I’ve previously had two ‘real’ Thai meals – Sailor Thai at the Rocks and Jimmy Liks in Victoria St, Potts Point.
http://www.sailorsthai.com.au/
http://www.jimmyliks.com/

Cathy would also rate Longgrain, in Liittle Bourke St, Melbourne.
http://www.longrain.com.au/

We think the combination of food, atmosphere and setting at the Spirit House topped them all.

PS The Spirit House has an interesting blog at http://www.spirithouse.com.au/funstuff/