3 Best Restaurants in Viti Levu, Fiji

At the end of a jetty extending into a lagoon, a sand floor and thick wooden tables furnish the setting for outstanding seafood. Among the restaurant's six types of fish, all but Coral Trout can be steamed, grilled, baked, panfried, crumbed, or battered and served with a trio of tartar sauce, soy sauce, and garlic butter. The pièce de résistance is a seafood platter for two that includes oysters, mussels, scallops, shots of lobster bisque, baby octopus, calamari, prawn cocktails, parrot fish, mahimahi, tuna, and a whole lobster, all beautifully presented on a wooden board. You can dine under the hand-carved, traditional high ceiling or alfresco and take in the views some couples choose to accompany their wedding vows.

Diners come from around Denarau to this casual restaurant for the legendary seafood buffet Wednesday and Saturday nights. Dubbed Ika Levu (Fijian for "Great Fish"), the buffet features the restaurant's characteristic live cooking stations and artful presentation, only with an extravagant array of Fiji's freshest. Indoor and outdoor tables are well-spaced. Buffet themes on other nights include Indo-Fijian, native-Fijian, BBQ, and Asian-Pacific, and there's always a children's buffet. It's on the ground floor of the resort's main building, and you can walk up from the beach.

The Sofitel's signature restaurant does not disappoint as it uses local produce in contemporary, French-influenced cuisine. Popular local crab may take the form of crab cakes with coriander, chile jam, and meyer lemon soubise, while Nadi bay prawns might be flambéed with French brandy, garlic, and chive butter. Well-spaced tables and comfortable leather-upholstered chairs exclude stuffiness, and desserts such as green tea iced soufflé with berry compote are equally light. Private beach dining from a set menu can be arranged and executive chef Brendon Coffey anticipates having an optional set menu in the dining room.