ochre restaurant

we had such a great night the first time we returned the next night. the location was great, right on the boardwalk. the food was delicious we tried theaustralianantipasto, the salt and native pepperleaf crocodile, the morganbury beef strip loin, and the lamb rump with chickpea tabbouleh and they were all delicious. but what made us return was the amazing list of cocktails and locally sourced spirits. the standout drink was the old fashioned using local mt uncle whiskey and torched orange that has been barrelled for 3 months. it was outstanding. i highly recommend ochre and would love the opportunity to return to cairns for dinner.

nov2020. went here for a weekend dinner with the partner after making an online reservation ahead of time.
we chose one 3x course set meal (entree, main and dessert) for $72 as well as choosing two more items from al a carte. medium and large plates are considered as mains. we tried the crispy pork and scallops, and sashimi of the day (salmon, tuna) to start, which were delicate and fresh. for mains, we chose the crocodile and prawns, and seared emu. both were delicious, a nice experience of more unusualaustraliancuisine. for dessert, we enjotyed the deconstructed banoffee pie.
casual ambience with indoor and ourdoor seating overlooking the water. efficient and friendly service. reasonable services.
overall, a better dining experience than previously.
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aug2019. made a weekend dinner reservation here for one during a trip to cairns.
happily sipped on a fun, cheeky cocktail whilst perusing the menu. chose to order the 'salt and native pepper crocodile and prawns', and then the 'quandong brulee' for dessert. nice hint of flavours, although portions appeared small for price and missed potential of highlighting the lovely native ingredients.
smart casual ambience with indoor and outdoor (along the esplanade) seating available. friendly and efficient service. prices on higher end.
overall, an interesting concept (introduction to nativeaustralianfoods), however just missing the mark for execution.

food was wonderful! the white chocolate and cumin mash was fantastic. steaks were cooked to perfect. the menu was filled with top qualityaustralianflavours and produce. the only thing that could be improved on is the service. staff were friendly but did not match the standard of the food here.

ochre is 1 of a few rare restaurants that featuresaustralianbushfood and native ingredients on their menu so i was definitely keen for a visit. i decided to go for salt & pepper leaf crocodile & prawns and wattleseed pavlova. the crocodile & prawns were great but the batter was sooo salty, although the pickles and lemon aspen sambal were able to tone it down a little bit. when i mentioned how salty it was the waitress explained that due to the nature of the native ingredients, it tasted indeed more powerful. the pavlova came out looking like a swiss roll but tasted like a pav! the wattleseed cream has a nutty taste to it and i'm glad the davidson plum was there to give it a different contrast and texture, otherwise the whole thing would have been very sweet. all in all it was a great experience, my waitress karly was super friendly and approachable. there are plenty of other things on the menu that i would definitely come back and try next time.

when in australia we like to sampleaustralianfood, and the premier restaurant to do this in cairns is ochre. this is now our fourth visit to cairns and the last three times our culinary highlight has been dinner here! red ochre as it used to be called, had a great rustic venue in the centre of town with outside seating we loved. real oz-iana. food and service was always sensational, and the menu includes local game such as wallaby, bay bugs, kangaroo and my favourite.. crocodile! use of local breads (damper), herbs and plants (wattle) just added to the outback mystic of the fare on offer. this time the location had changed and the name shortened. venue is now a bit formulaic in a long line of similarly styled restaurants and getting us seated was a bit problematic, best to arrive after six when dinner service starts. however the food came quickly and i was soon overwhelmed by my mesmerizing dish of salt water croc and prawns! the wattle seed pavlova was unique and superb!

booked this restaurant and absolutely loved it. the food was very unigue usingaustraliansourced ingredients, and staff were friendly and helpful. definitely worth the price and woukd highly recommend the chocolate desert plate .

on a holiday from sydney with my partner and came to ochre as it was highly recommended. the waitress was helpful and very knowledgeable regarding wine pairings. ochre had great service, incredible food usingaustralianproduce and fantastic atmosphere! highly recommend!

wonderful service, wonderful food! as we were at the tail end of our cairns holiday, thus limiting our funds, we used our i-venture card as payment. due to this the menu choices were meant to be limited to either the crocodile and prawn or kangaroo. as my qife doesn't eat either of these the staff were very accomodating and allowed her to order the twice cooked chicken instead. myself and 2 friends ordered the crocodile and all 4 of us left the restaurant extremely satisfied with our choices, and the chef's expert use ofaustraliannative products.

highly recommend! and will return. ocre has joined many other attractions of fnq in forming part of our love affair with cairns. can't wait to return to cairns and can't wait to sample a wider variety of the chef's wares!

while holidaying up in cairns for the week, my boyfriend and i decided to treat ourselves to a fancyaustralianmeal.
our waitress was wonderful she made the whole experience so much better for us.
first up was the tempura mortem bay bugs... this one was a total wildcard we were not sure what we where getting ourselves into.
it was so juicy and tasted somewhat like crab we where pleasantly surprised with this dish.
next we shared a plate of wallaby ... it was amazing, it was cooked to perfection and the accompanying sauce and salad complemented the dish perfectly.
last off we shared a plate of crocodile and prawns, the prawns were good with the right flavours. the crocodile was beautiful but probably my least favourite dish as it lacked a little flavour.

overall this restaurant was great, but a little but on the expensive side for 2 students on a budget holiday, in total we paid $130 including a beer and lychee cocktail!

i chose this restaurant for my birthday meal as i wanted to try some of the more exoticaustralianmeats. we booked a table via their website and the restaurant was mostly empty when we arrived, it soon filled.
for starters we had -
australian antipasto salmon beetroot gravlax, kangaroo terrine – kakadu plum, emu carpaccio – green ant salsa verde, smoked crocodile – riberry mayo, lemon aspen fresh fried cheese
it was great to try. miss12 was partial to the smoked crocodile!
for my main i had wallaby topside (even though i had patted one that very day) , it was good and the meat was plentiful. my husband had the char grilled kangaroo sirloin , he enjoyed the experience.
we enjoyed the evening and would recommend the experience.

this is howaustralianrestaurants should be. from the moment we arrived, the staff were attentive and pleasant without being intrusive, pretty unusual in popular aussie restaurants. the menu is full of interesting local food options with several dining choices, from tasting plates to degustation, 2 and 3 course set menus and a la carte. very handy when considering how you want your emu, crocodile, roo or seafood served. and the question - does estuarine crocodile count as seafood?

we sampled the wattle seed damper bread and local dukka with a bottle of fizzy (an o'leary walker hurtle) to start, whilst we lingered over the substantial menu. we had both tasting platters ofaustralianantipasto (thai roo, crocodile wanton, ocean trout with green ant gravlax, emu and finger lime labnah) and seafood compilation (spiced calalmari, pippi's in coconut and myrtle tom yum, oysters natural, with bloody mary pearls, and tiger prawns). both dishes were wonderfully presented, explained by our enthusiastic and passionate server. for mains, we had the fish of the day - wide mouth nannygai with a red curry sauce and i had the crocodile and prawns in a native pepper seed batter with pickled veg and sambal. i do have to say the crocodile was a bit chewy - and i put this down to the nature of crocodiles, though everything was gorgeously presented. it was a surprise to meet staff who were really passionate and knowledgeable about ingredients (including where the chef shops) and the food they served.

the wine list was wide and reasonably priced. which pleased my hubby, so we had multiple bottles.

we finished with a quandong creme brûlée, mainly because i had no idea what a quandong was! very nice, but quandongs are hard to some by apparently, so won't be using many at home.

all in all, this was an excellent meal, the location is a rather a nondescript corner in the cbd but the outdoor seating is not affected by this as cairns traffic seems fairly light.

this is what i expect from a highly rated restaurant in australia and, i was pleased to see other patrons enjoying the level of service and surprise at the fare that i felt. we'll be back as soon as we can.

disappointment. decided to bring some overseas visitors to try out someaustralianfood. what a huge disappointment!

knowing that we are only small eaters, we decided to go with 1 starteraustralianantipasto to share and 3 mains to share. our waitress with the short blonde hair was pretty rude. she was initially friendly but when she tried to persuade us to change the antipasto to a main instead of a starter, but we decline, her whole attitude changed! knowing that we were only small eaters, we decided against it.

service was really poor.
after more than an hour of waiting, we decided to enquire if the food was even being cooked! looking around us, there were 80% of the people still waiting for their food. we decided to approach a waiter to enquire if the meals are ready as we had an early start the next morning and it was getting really late. the blonde waitress replies - '1 hour wait is not too long at all'!

what kind of attitude is that towards fully paying customers??

after the long awaited meals, only 1out of the 3 meals tasted any good.
the beef was tender and the potato stacks were reasonably nice.
the chicken dish was horribly dry and the wallaby was very tough.

waiting for the bill was another big nightmare .. took ages too.

what a great big disappointment to a lovely start to a holiday!
will never ever recommend you to anyone.

expensive, judgemental and rude staff.

a staple of mine - the ochre has a fantastic modernaustralianmenu using fresh and amazing local ingredients. not only is the food superb, the vibe of the restaurant exudes fine dining and the wine menu is one of the best in the city.

have been told this restaurant is a must for any food lover..... it lives up to reputation and more! emma was a waitress that was warm, polite and quite knowledgeable.... nothing was too much trouble....
the food spoke of vibrancy withaustraliannative notes married perfectly together.
a must try!

we had theaustralianplatter for two, which included a wattleseed damper, entree of prawns, crocodile & antipasto platter of emu, wontons etc. main was kangaroo and wallaby with sweet potato fries and buckchoy. dessert was wattleseed & hazelnut pavolva. the food was amazing, service great, but by the end we were too full!