Broome's food scene is shaped by its extraordinary geography and history — a remote pearling town on the edge of the Indian Ocean, with deep Asian influences baked into its DNA. The result is a cuisine unlike anywhere else in Australia. You'll find Japanese, Malay, and Chinese flavours woven naturally into local cooking, a legacy of the multicultural pearl lugger crews who settled here over a century ago. Fresh seafood is the backbone of everything, caught daily from the Kimberley Coast.

The Broome Courthouse Markets, held on Saturday mornings during the dry season, are an essential first stop. Stalls overflow with mud crab, barramundi, and coral trout, often grilled on the spot with a squeeze of lime and a chilli hit. Local pearling families sell their catch informally too, and you'd be remiss to leave without trying a freshly shucked Broome pearl oyster — sweet, briny, and almost impossibly fresh. Mango season brings its own chaos of fruit stalls lining the roadside out toward Cable Beach.

For sit-down dining, Matso's Broome Brewery is an institution — cold craft beers, a shaded verandah, and a menu that leans hard into local produce. Zanders at The Mangrove delivers refined Kimberley seafood with ocean views that do half the work. But honestly, some of the best eating happens casually: a barramundi burger from a roadside van at sunset, cold Broome Beer in hand, watching the famous Staircase to the Moon rise over Roebuck Bay. That's the real Broome dining experience.