Le Bout du Monde

The day starts early, when people stop in after the Moselle market for coffee and a pastry from the in-house bakery. Lunch is French brasserie cooking, the oyster shack serves through the afternoon and evening, and there is live music at weekends. Once a month a Sunday party with DJs takes over the rooftop, and the rooms upstairs host private celebrations.

Oysters are the reason to come: local Dumbéa oysters, wild and black oysters and fines de claire, by the half dozen or dozen, or on a seafood platter with prawns, mussels and crab or rock lobster. From the brasserie menu, try the house fish soup, the Tahitian raw fish salad or the yellowfin tuna tartare, or stay with French classics such as beef bourguignon and choucroute royale.

At weekends the brunch menu includes a Tahitian version, with raw fish salad, taro rice, fruit po’e and firi firi doughnuts.

Call Port Moselle on VHF channel 67 before arrival. Visitor stays in the marina are limited to three days in the high season, from mid-May to mid-December, and six days in the low season, while Port du Sud, the city’s other marina, takes visitors for up to a month. The restaurant faces the boats from the marina’s edge, so from a berth it is a short walk.

Le Bout du Monde is open every day from 7am to 11pm, with the kitchen serving without a break until 10pm and oysters from 7.30am. Book a table by phone. For a group, the two private rooms upstairs and the rooftop can be reserved, and the restaurant seats around 150 in all, with a terrace of about 100. There is free parking behind the building.