Sawtell Hotel

Anchoring the top of First Avenue, this is the town's enduring watering hole, a coastal pub trading here since the early 1930s and still very much the community's front bar. A Mediterranean-leaning renovation has softened the room without stripping its local character, and the kitchen leans on the coast, with local seafood the thing it's best known for, alongside the expected pub classics: steaks, pasta, burgers, salads and a menu that keeps kids happy. Food runs daily from late morning through to nine in the evening, so dinner is never a gamble, and the bar carries on later still. Live music and a genuinely mixed crowd of locals, families and holidaymakers off the beach give it the easy hum of a pub that belongs to its town rather than a brand. A dependable, unpretentious dinner at the heart of the village.