Barefoot Art Food Wine

Overall 9.3 - Food 10, Ambience 9, Value 9, Service 9

Another wonderful reason to visit Horseshoe Bay, Magnetic Island. Make sure you arrive prior to sundown, watch the sunset and enjoy the magnificent food and wine! All four in our party rated Barefoot one of the best!!   (doesn't get much better - July, 2009)

Overall 8 - Food 8, Ambience 8, Value 8, Service 8

Barefoot Art/Food/Wine is found at Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic Islands only dining strip (which has around 5 places to eat and drink). We turned up on a Sunday evening after after a few drinks at the nearby Marlin Bar.

The interior of the place is decorated with various paintings and sculptures, the majority of which appeared to be for sale. Louise and I didn’t ponder the art for too long as we were both quite peckish.Dining at barefoot is either out the front where you can watch the punters going by, or out the back on a nice, semi-enclosed deck, the rear of which is bordered by tropical vegetation. We opted for a nice back corner surrounded by plants and just the right amount of lighting.Service was casual, but attentive, although it was fairly quiet due to most of the weekend visitors having left the island. We ordered an entrée of bruschetta, and for main course we chose twice fried duck and tempura whiting, which was one of the specials.While we waited for our food I headed over to the rather appealing looking bar, where I was pleasantly surprised to find a number of unusual beers. I returned to the table, beer in hand just in time for the arrival of our entrée.Personally, I like my bruschetta topping (tomato, red onion, basil) to be lightly marinated in balsamic and olive oil and served on a piece of bread that has some crunch. Barefoot’s idea however is to lay a “dry” tomato/onion/basil mix onto a slice of bread that is decidedly lacking in the crunch department, and to drizzle over a minimal amount of thick balsamic as a final aesthetic touch. Each to their own, but it didn’t do anything for me.Next up were the mains, Louise was quite pleased with the tempura whiting and although it was small, I was well impressed by the flavours and texture from the crispy skinned duck. All in all, an enjoyable place for a meal and a drink, with nice atmosphere, especially for a couple on a quiet night like ours.Oh, and don’t be alarmed if you spot a large rodent running over the back deck, it will in fact be a Giant White-tailed Uromys, a native Australin rat, that is a protected species in Queensland, and should not be likened to the disease carrying European rat.   (See my reviews (2) - October, 2007)