The service deserves its own paragraph. It was busy enough to excuse a lot and nothing needed excusing. Orders came out in the right sequence and water appeared without a request. The tables on the footpath where we sat were looked after as well as the ones inside, which is not a given on a morning like this.

Everything about this experience is truly exceptional. Great big beds, super fluffy towels, staff all look like they've stepped out of a Coastal Living Magazine shoot. Where they could play on tropes and cliches, they have not.

The pitch is a beach club in the middle of a city, and Perth has the weather to try it. Not sure the hotel delivers on the experience though.

From Cooloongatta to Cairns, Queensland is seeing a dining boom. The state is longer than most people remember. We drove the whole thing from the Gold Coast tot he Far North and ate accordingly. Like the tourism slogan of years past. Where else but Queensland.

The menu leans classic European with quiet Asian inflections running throughout. They're subtle enough so you might not notice until the third or fourth course, at which point you realise they have been there all along. Premium seafood sits alongside heritage breed proteins, Belgian chocolate desserts nod to Van Camp's origins without tipping into novelty.

Pale pink, with a barely there blush that Provence has made into something of a competitive sport. In the glass it smells like someone opened a window facing the sea.

At $48 it is, genuinely, one of the most difficult wines in Australia to argue against. One esteemed wine mind called it the best sub-$50 bottle in the country. They were not being silly.

The food is where Dempsey's training asserts itself. The menu is compact and changes with the seasons and with what's available locally.