Mietta's Review
Magical outdoor restaurant, particularly at night. First time visitors to Port Douglas should plan, and save, for a night at Nautilus. The food is good, but the ambience is better and, if it should start to rain, the crew scale the mizzen mast and rig coverings over most of the assembled guests. This is a unique place, but it is expensive especially if the service doesn't quite work for you.

Other published opinions

Queensland Food and Wine 2010 Guide Score: 15/20, One Star "Fifty-seven years in the same spot has to be some kind of record for a restaurant in a tourist destination. But Nautilus, set overlooking sometimes fickle Port Douglas, powers on, enlivened mid-year by the re-appointment of chef Steve Ritchie"

Courier Mail Food and Wine Guide 2009 Queensland Score: 15/20, One Hat "Jeanette Wearne Children under eight are not catered for, including babies. The candle-lit climb up through the trees from Macrossan Street sets the scene for what has, for the past two decades, been a quintessential tropical dining experience"

Gourmet Traveller 2009 Australian Restaurant Guide "At Nautilus, with a billion stars above your head and candles flickering in the tropical night, you'll wonder why more restaurants don't do away with walls and ceilings. Not all enjoy this climate or rainforest location - all the more reason then to relish this spot, with its thronelike cane chairs and torch-lit path from Macrossan Street"

Courier Mail food and wine guide Queensland 2008 Score: 15/20, One Hat "This is as it always has been: a very special place. The food is imaginative and adventurous, the atmosphere uniquely exotic, and the wine list expensive but comprehensive"

Gourmet Traveller 2008 Australian Restaurant Guide "Notching up more than half a century of successful business is a big deal in this evolving part of the world"

Gourmet Traveller 2007 Australian Restaurant Guide "Sitting nestled into terraced rainforest, open to the stars and flickering with candlelight, Nautilus's setting sets the bar high. Fortunately Matthew Wild delivers food of the calibre you'd expect for the context and prices. Choosing from the seafood-heavy menu can prove a challenge, but the roasted Moreton Bay bug on a bed of lemony tabbouleh is hard to resist."

Gourmet Traveller 2006 Australian Restaurant Guide "There's not much to say about the extraordinary rainforest terrace setting of Nautilus that hasn't already been uttered in awe by beauty-struck diners. Let's say instead that after 50 years this conic restaurant is possibly the most expensive in a land where shorts and Birkenstocks are standard attire."

Courier-Mail Goodlife Restaurant Guide 2006 * "A winding path surrounded by rainforest and lit up by candles leads diners to this Port Douglas stalwart which has been operating for more than 25 years."

Courier-Mail Goodlife Restaurant Guide 05 * "Set in dense rainforest, accessed up a winding, votive-lit pathway which weaves through a tropical garden and on to a terrace set with towering, highbacked bamboo chairs and dripping chandeliers."

Gourmet Traveller Australian Restaurant Guide 2005 "Steve Ritchie made his name on the Gold Coast as a chef who could work magic with native ingredients: try the mud crab, wok-steamed in a coconut-cream laksa. Entry is via a candlelit rainforest path, which weaves its way to the dining platform where the black tie-clad waiters serve you with the same professionalism as an inner city venue. Only there's no roof- and the walls are lush vegetation."

Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide Australia 2004,'Entry via a candlelit pathway that meanders up the hill through thick foliage gives a preview of the natural beauty in which the restaurant is set. Expect to pay prices at the upper end for all this, but on a perfect night, the venue can be magic. A strong Asian influence, infiltrated by the odd burst of Mediterranean-inspired dishes'