Shippies Restaurant Battery Point
Shippies Restaurant, within the Shipwright's Arms Hotel, may have changed names and owners a few times, but has been serving hearty seafood chowders on this corner in Battery Point pretty consistently for around 160 years. Known locally as the 'Sydney to Hobart Hotel', the pub and restaurant hosts the QLD (or quiet little drink) each year for several hundred yachties, crew and supporters - quiet indeed.
The kitchen does great bar meals - particularly handy when you forget to book - but the menu is a big step up from the counter lunch. Despite the pub's tough-guy boasts of "no tofu and no bok choy", long-time chef Mick Newell plays with the traditions of pub food, serving variations such as Thai-style trevalla with wok-tossed noodles and greens (although not bok choy presumably) and pan-seared quail salad with chorizo, roasted capsicum and lentils.
The seafood chowder with basil aioli is the house specialty and is made for Hobart's winter, while homemade desserts along the lines of creme brulee are exactly the simple favourites you crave while listening to locals spin yarns to tourists in this friendly, wood-paneled English-style pub.
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