4 Best Restaurants in Viti Levu, Fiji

Formerly third-in-command at the renowned Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort, chef Sushil Chandra has brought his talents to the Bedarra Beach Inn on the "Sunset Strip." Take a seat on the balcony overlooking the pool and ocean and enjoy masterful seafood dishes at reasonable prices. Try the mahimahi in coconut milk, lemon, caper, and garlic butter or the Fijian specialty Ika Vakalolo—cooked fish in coconut milk with tomato and onion. The curries, too, are outstanding. The space is intimate, the service casual, and the cuisine well worth diving into. Reservations are essential for dinner, but for breakfast and lunch just walk in.

You get far more than you pay for at this Suva institution hidden behind shrubbery, one block east of the main drag. The menu is on a blackboard and the food is served cafeteria-style but don't be deterred: It's prepared fresh and tastes accordingly. Traditional Indian fare sits alongside local fish and vegetable dishes, all classically prepared. The staff will mix-and-match to your preference before you retreat to a booth or table and savor the city's finest. Authentic sweet dishes and cakes are served in the second room down the porch. It's a shame they're not open for dinner.

What more appropriate setting for fantastic seafood than a 35-year-old original Blue Lagoon cruise ship? The fresh catch is written up on the blackboard menu at either end of the dining room. More often than not this includes lobster, sea prawns, and fish such as Nuqa, masterfully prepared. There are smoking and no-smoking areas as well as a private dining room in the former captain's quarters with 270-degree views. Some diners come later to hear the guitarist accompanied by a slice of sticky date pudding or chocolate mud cake, but it's worth arriving in time for sunset drinks. The restaurant is engine-less and attached to the dock, so don't worry about missing the boat.

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.