Alida

1 Bridge Road
alidarestaurant.com.au

It’s impossible to talk about Alida without first revealing where it is.

The Penny Royal! Penny Royal is a kind of adventure playground, ostensibly for kids but with plenty of places to drink, set into sheer cliffs at the mouth of the South Esk, downriver from the marvellous Cataract Gorge.

It’s gimmicky, incongruous with Launceston in general (or indeed anything you’ll find in Australia), and utterly terrific in every respect. It’s worth having a look around here if only to grab an ice cream. I guarantee that you will take photos.

The Penny Royal, complete with lake, pirate ship, zip-line course and island stage. Because why not.

Anyway, Alida occupies the heart of the Penny Royal complex. From the window here you can watch a guy dressed as a pirate ‘sail’ a pirate ‘ship’ (on rails) across the ‘lake’ to an ‘island’ in the middle, all the way shivering-his-timbers and arrrrgh-ing to the kids on board, even though Cornish Pirates weren’t that common in the north of Tasmania, and explaining how convicts once lived. Or something. I couldn’t really hear. But it’s still terrific.

Jess trying to remember the Spanish word for jamon.

This is the ideal place to share a charcuterie plate and look out the window. We’ll always choose any type of Spanish ham that’s going. (If you’ve ever been to Spain you’ll understand why.) The Serrano on sourdough was lovely, though it did see Jess grab her phone to look for flight deals to Spain while I ate most of it.

Possibly the best ham you'll find outside of Spain.

I don't think I've ever not ordered the scallops.

After that, small plates were all we were likely to be able to fit in so we opted for the scallop dish, beef tataki, and some Moreton Bay bugs – something you don’t often see in Tasmania. Each dish was just lovely.

A small plate will set you back somewhere in the mid-$20s, while a main is good value at between $30 and $40. A steak can be up to $55.

In short, this is a wonderful place to dine and the food is of the quality you’d expect at the flagship restaurant at a popular tourist site. Just bear in mind that this place is owned by the Josef Chromy hospitality conglomerate, so by eating here you’re hardly doing little-old Lonnie any favours. But … Penny Royal!