DOYLES
CIRCULAR QUAY
SYDNEY

It was really the fault of Marlene Dietrich. The sultry German bi-sexual actress and singer was visiting Sydney in the early 1960s and there wasn’t (legally) much going on in the late-night food and drink department.

She was interviewed by a Daily Telegraph reporter named Hugh Curnow and, apparently, they had some sort of pillow liaison.

In nightlife-starved Sydney of the early 1960s he took her to Watson’s Bay. To a place called Doyle’s. The Doyle fishing family had been running it for decades and were honoured to have Ms. Dietrich as a guest.

Night after night (after her show) she would make the winding journey to Watson’s Bay. I suspect some illegal booze somehow found their table.

Not that the Doyle family needed a celeb to make their business thrive. The family settled in Watson’s Bay in the early 1800s and started selling fish from the family hut on the site of the now famous “ Doyle’s on the beach”.

In the 1970s, when I was living in New York, no trip back to Sydney was complete without a visit to Doyles.

Some Sydney rock oysters with tiny triangles of brown bread and a tomato mayonnaise dip. A cold bottle of white burgundy. And, from memory, a few plump crumbed prawns stuffed with bacon and spinach and pine nuts.

And, of course the view. The awesome view right up Sydney Harbour to the Harbour Bridge.

Well, Doyles have done it again. This time the view is the other way.

Their new place is Doyles at Circular Quay. It sprawls at the end of the International Arrivals and Departures Terminal in the sha dow of the Harbour Bridge.

You have postcard views of the Opera House and the harbour.

The place is virtually two restaurants. Outside is a sprawling, comfy, family place for fish and chips and a couple of cold beers and a glass of sauv blanc.

Inside it is a trifle more formal, but not stuffy, and the service is fantastic.

I figured a famous seafood restaurant would have good fish and so I opted for the salmon and tuna sashimi. It was perfect.

They served the wasabi in a smeared mound on top of a slice of lemon with a twin pile of horse radish.

My old radio mate, Bob Rogers, who is a 76-year-old former centrefold and fitness freak, hates batter but he devoured some lightly-dusted tempura prawns.

I guess my lunch was jaundiced by memories of the old Watson Bay days.

I ordered the stuffed prawns. They call them “ jumbo prawns”. And they are. Greedily I ordered four instead of two and couldn’t eat them all.

They were stuffed with bacon and herbs and spinach and nuts. At Watson’s Bay they use pine nuts. At Circular Quay it’s macadamia.

It is all nuts to me.

Doyle’s at Circular Quay – inside or outside – is good value.

Perfect location. Good ambience. Good seafood.

Not a bad blend.