A Feast with a View: St George Sailing Club, Sans Souci

The St George Sailing Club has a restaurant right on the water in Sans Souci and is one of the few places in Sydney with a water view that won't stress out your credit card. The menu has a few types of seafood platters, pasta, salads and pizza. Find out how to get one of those coveted outdoor tables and what to order there!

Mr NQN and I are headed to the St George Sailing Club with Valentina, Peter, James and Alison. I have to coax Mr NQN inside as the keen sailor is busy admiring the boats out front. After signing in at the machines at the front after being helped by the friendly staff, we head in. This is our second time here. The first time was during one of those crazy Sydney January storms where gale force winds meant that we weren't able to enjoy the terrace area.

Usually any restaurant on the water tends to be on the expensive side but the prices are reasonable here. Valentina is a regular - she loves it because it makes her feel like she's on holiday when she comes here. It definitely has a coastal vibe to it.

The pick for seating is at one of the outdoor tables with a view of the water under the shade of the umbrellas. We have a booking for inside (bookings are recommended) but they know that we will try and move to a table outside if one is free. At 12:15pm we manage to nab to very last large table with an umbrella. These outdoor tables can't be reserved and it's first in best dressed so ideally you want to go early around noon for lunch or 6pm for dinner. And by 1pm every inside table will be taken up.

All six of us are happy sharing so we order at the counter where they let us split the bill into 3, otherwise you have to order and pay via QR code on the table. To get drinks you line up for them at the bar. There is also a daily slushie and today's flavour is watermelon.

We aren't waiting long before all of our food arrives at the same time. The centrepiece is the hot seafood platter with 2 long fillets of beer battered fish, 4 half shell scallops with miso butter, 4 halves of Moreton Bay bugs with garlic butter and a big tumble of Szechuan calamari and hot chips. Usually I'm a cold seafood platter person but I really enjoy the selection. The Moreton bay bugs are easy to extract the meat out of and are well seasoned and tender with lots of garlic butter.

The calamari is incredibly tender and I like the Asian style seasoning with spices like star anise (although there isn't any Szechuan pepper. The scallops with the roe on have a good flavour to them from the miso butter and the hot chips and fish are freshly fried so that they are piping hot (I have a strong dislike for cold hot chips but no issues here at all). We dip these in the pot of tartare and enjoy. I'd say that it is ideal to share between 4 people especially if you order a pizza and/or a salad as well.

Honestly I didn't expect the pizza to be that good because they're not a pizza specialist but the Calabrese pizza was a very solid offering and I'd order it again. The Calabrese is topped with Casalingo salami, nduja, chilli honey and dabs of ricotta.

Likewise the garlic prawn pizza has a good base and seems fitting for the setting. It has small garlic prawns, fior di latte cheese, cherry tomatoes, nduja, pickled zucchini ribbons and rocket.

It's a very hot summer's day today so we order two salads. The first one is Alison's suggestion and it was the one I also honed in on. The beetroot salad has roasted red and golden beetroot chunks with soft, dill goats cheese, rocket and ancient grains. It's well seasoned and a substantial salad that I will try and recreate at home.

Valentina knows this menu well and recommends that we order the Greek salad with capsicum, cucumber, olives, tomato, feta and oregano which is refreshing and tasty.

There's no room for dessert although there are a few options on the menu. Instead we drink in that view.

So tell me Dear Reader, is there a restaurant that makes you feel like you're on holiday?

This meal was independently paid for.

St George Sailing Club

2 Riverside Dr, Sans Souci NSW 2219

Phone: (02) 9529 4911

Monday to Thursday 10:30am-10:30pm

Friday to Sunday 10:30am-12am