Indian Cottage

When much of the strip has closed for the night, the lights stay on at this long-running Indian room near the First Avenue corner, its kitchen turning out curries and classics seven nights a week. The menu covers familiar, comforting ground, a broad spread of spice levels, generous serves and value that keeps regulars coming back, served across a modest dining room or packed up for takeaway to eat by the water. Dinner runs from five until ten every night, which makes it one of Sawtell's more reliable late options in a town that tends toward early evenings. It's part of a small, family-run regional operation with siblings around the Coffs Coast rather than a national franchise, and the cooking has the unhurried consistency that comes from feeding the same neighbourhood year after year. Straightforward, warming and dependable.