Coopers Hotel

Downstairs is your traditional pub, upstairs a new world awaits. An alfresco, decked garden with picture windows onto King Street flows into a deck bar with high tables and a cosy bistro. The food lives up to its imaginative environment with a menu travelling beyond the schnitzel. A battle of food ownership breaks out over both entrees: the gravity-defying tower of crispy noodles tossed with melting spiced soft-shell crab and the roasted red pepper salad with a halo of Sichuan calamari. The Cajun chicken burger tastes a long way from Louisiana, and requires python-like flexibility to get your jaws around it.