Eating: Drunken Admiral

Our visit to the Drunken Admiral was a last minute family dinner where an impromptu pre-wedding council was held over a seafood feast.

The interior of the Drunken Admiral is decked out in excessive quantities of pirate paraphernalia. Since we were all asian tourists we loved it, especially all the attention to detail. Many great family group selfies were had. The layout of the restaurant is a little cramped with all the decorations, but the atmosphere was great.

I’ve been obsessed with mussels since I’ve eaten them at Preserve Kitchen in Glen Iris (VIC). If cooked correctly they’re tender, chewy with so much flavour, but the sauce is always the best part. The Drunken Admiral’s Steamed Southern Mussels are a generous portion size with a delicious broth of white wine, tomato, garlic and shallots. Here’s a tip, anytime you see white wine and garlic in a mussel dish, bets are it’s probably pretty decent. The best part of this dish was soaking up all that broth with that bread.

The ocean trout salad was a hit with the parents. They loved the generous smoked trout that was mixed well throughout the rocket.

The sea salt and pink peppercorn squid was a hit with myself and The Better Half. It’s cooked perfectly, soft with a slight crunch from the crumb.

Yachtie’s seafood mixed grill, came out exceeding my expectations. I was expecting the fish skewers to be overdone, but it seemed like Yachtie (whoever they are) had pulled through and all the seafood was perfectly cooked with nothing overdone. Those tender scallops, firm prawns and that slightly flaking fish, all well charred on the grill.

For dessert we shared “The Whisperings of Tuscany” and “The Captain’s Tart”. These are respectively the lemon syrup cake served with limoncello mascarpone and vanilla custard, and the almond milk pannacotta served with blackberries and turkish fairy floss. Both were delish, but my favourite was the pannacotta. I’ll always have a sweet spot (hohoho, pardon the pun) for that silky refreshing dessert.

In conclusion:

If you’re visiting here, you must keep in mind that it’s catered for the tourist and therefore you must adopt a similar silly attitude of coming here to have fun. I cannot fault the food, as we ordered quite a quantity of dishes, but they all came within a reasonable time frame and cooked well.

The personal favourites were the steamed mussels and salt and pepper squid, but all other dishes were just as tasty. Service was a little slow, but taking into account the peak time we arrived and the full occupancy, what they lacked in promptness they made up for in friendliness.

Drunken Admiral

17 Hunter St

Hobart, Tasmania

03 6234 1903