The Top 85 Restaurants Near Palette
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Rank 1. Palette
Modern Australian
Inside the HOTA Gallery on the Gold Coast, Palette is a fine dining restaurant where the art on the walls is not entirely incidental to what arrives on the plate. The room is built for celebration: private dining, long evenings, the kind of occasion that calls for a cocktail first. The kitchen earns three Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide, and the cooking runs to lobster soufflé and Wagyu with foie gras.
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Rank 2. Yamagen
Japanese
Glossy black finishes and low lighting set the mood at this contemporary Japanese restaurant inside Surfers Paradise's QT Hotel. The menu runs the izakaya staples: sashimi, sushi, and kushiyaki from the grill, all built for sharing. A focused list of Japanese whisky, sake, and cocktails keeps pace with the food. The Gold Coast isn't the first place you'd expect a moody Tokyo-ish dining room, which is sort of the point.
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Rank 3. Citrique
Modern Australian
The dessert buffet alone has its own dedicated zone, which tells you something about priorities here. Citrique is a Modern Australian restaurant inside the JW Marriott on the Gold Coast, built around interactive dining stations that drift from fresh sushi and seafood through Asian curries and satays to European plates. The Australian Good Food Guide gives it Two Chef Hats, and the à la carte menu leans into local sourcing.
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Rank 4. T'ang Court
Contemporary Cantonese
The dining room inside The Langham takes its name from a Chinese dynasty, which sets the tone pretty clearly. T'ang Court is a formal contemporary Cantonese restaurant where the kitchen works through roasted meats, dim sum, and Southern Chinese classics with careful technique. The setting is polished enough that you'll want to dress for it, and the service follows suit. One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide.
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Rank 5. Bar Leo Food & Wine
Mediterranean
Alfresco tables catch the Gold Coast sun at this Mediterranean share-plate bar on Panitz Street, where the wine list is tightly edited and the menu is built for grazing rather than deliberating. Small plates lean coastal, raw fish and fried seafood sit alongside grilled skewers and a shareable T-bone, with Basque cheesecake to close. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.
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Rank 6. Kiyomi
Japanese
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Rank 7. Nineteen at The Star
Modern Australian
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Rank 8. Kost
Modern Australian
The open-fire grill running on charcoal and ironbark wood is the organizing principle at Kost, a coastal bar and grill on Broadbeach's Oracle Boulevard where the menu leans Mediterranean and everything worth ordering has some smoke on it. The room is polished but relaxed, the kind of place where sharing plates and a decent wine list make a long lunch feel inevitable. An Australian Good Food Guide One Chef Hat.
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Rank 10. Social Eating House & Bar
Modern Australian
A lively modern Australian restaurant on Oracle Boulevard where the room is styled for lingering, not rushing. The menu leans contemporary and social, built around dishes meant to be shared around a well-set table. It holds a Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide, which signals serious cooking without the stiff-backed formality that usually comes with it. Broadbeach's Gold Coast crowd fills it out nicely.
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Rank 12. Little Truffle Dining Room & Bar
Modern Australian
Deep navy walls, brushed brass fittings, and velvet curtains set the register before anyone opens a menu: this is a fine dining room that takes itself seriously in the best way a Gold Coast restaurant can. Little Truffle is the kind of Modern Australian spot where you choose between à la carte and a four-course menu, linger over duck and house-made pasta, and leave later than planned. The Australian Good Food Guide gave it Two Chef Hats.
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A barn door on the Gold Coast highway opens onto neon signs, walls thick with photographs, and a long, low-lit room that takes Japanese izakaya dining seriously. Share plates move from sushi and sashimi through to robata-grilled seafood and yakitori skewers, the kind of menu that rewards a big group and a slow evening. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.
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Rank 14. Juju
Modern Australian
A two-level modern Australian restaurant on the Gold Coast Highway with a rooftop cocktail bar above, so you can eat well and then pretend you planned to stay out late all along. The kitchen runs a seasonally driven menu where soy and miso-marinated toothfish sits comfortably next to steak tartare with cured egg yolk and brioche. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.
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Rank 16. Lars
Modern Australian
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An entirely gluten-free Southeast Asian restaurant with 24 seats and an open kitchen, tucked into a Commerce Drive address that sounds more like a courier depot than a dinner destination. The room is small enough that you notice the kitchen's rhythm, and the menu leans into bold, herb-forward flavours without much apology. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.
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Rank 18. Anekawa
Japanese
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Rank 19. Jimmy Wah's
Modern Vietnamese
Share plates circle the table at this modern Vietnamese restaurant on the Gold Coast Highway, the kind of place where the drinks list gets taken as seriously as the food. The menu leans into bold, fresh flavours built for sharing, and the wine list is put together specifically to hold its own against Vietnamese cooking, which takes more thought than most. Loud, warm, and rarely quiet on a weekend night.
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Rank 21. Summer Pavilion
Modern Cantonese
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The colourful front door is the first signal that Madame V is playing its own game. Inside, geometric pendants, trailing floral strands, and fan motifs set a stylish scene for an Asian-inflected à la carte restaurant on the Gold Coast. The menu moves between steamed snapper in dashi broth and Wagyu donburi, with a lounge bar if you just want a cocktail and the vibe. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide One Chef Hat.
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Blond wood, cane pendant lights, and actual sunlight make this Pan-Asian restaurant and bar in Coolangatta feel like someone finally figured out that beach towns deserve interesting food. It's the sibling of Ally Chow up the coast, with a menu built around sharing, running from kingfish sashimi through to charcoal-cooked miso toothfish. An Australian Good Food Guide One Chef Hat keeps it honest.
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Rank 25. Potager
Modern Australian
Perched on a 10-acre property in Carool with the Northern Rivers valley rolling out toward the sea, Potager is a produce-led restaurant where the garden outside ends up on the plate inside. The kitchen runs on whole-animal cookery, local oysters and seafood, and nearby beef, all shifting with the seasons. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat. The sunny terrace makes long lunches feel like the obvious choice.
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Rank 26. The Paddock Restaurant
Modern Australian
The Gold Coast Hinterland's forested ridgeline is the backdrop here, and the kitchen leans into that setting hard, pulling produce from nearby farms and the forest floor for a Modern Australian menu that sits somewhere between relaxed and formally ambitious. Think Wagyu, bay lobster, and foraged greens treated with quiet seriousness. The room reads like a farmhouse that tidied up for guests. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.
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Rank 27. Taverna
Modern Greek
A Greek taverna steps from the sand in Kingscliff, with ocean views that do most of the decorating before a dish arrives. The menu is built for sharing, modern Greek in spirit, and the kitchen takes its time with each service in a way that quietly discourages checking your phone. Sunday's sustainable banquet is a particular reason to plan around the tides. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.
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Rank 29. Tweed River House
Modern Australian
A restored heritage house on the Tweed River, with pressed tin ceilings, palm fans, and a verandah that looks straight out at Wollumbin. This is a plantation-style bistro running a proper Modern Australian menu, the kind of place where lunch can quietly become afternoon. The Australian Good Food Guide gave it two Chef Hats. Come on a weekend when the lawn bar is open and the cane fields are green, and the pacing feels less like a meal than a small argument for slowing down.
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Rank 30. Paper Daisy
Modern Australian
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Rank 31. Pipit
Modern Australian
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Rank 32. River - Wild at Heart
Modern Australian New American
A casual fine-diner in laid-back Brunswick Heads where the whole menu reads like a love letter to the Northern Rivers, native ingredients and all. The chef holds an Australian Good Food Guide Hat for cooking that pulls from the land hard: kangaroo, wattleseed, pigface salsa verde, and lobster coral butter share space without any of it feeling like a bush-tucker gimmick. The room draws locals who take their food seriously but left their ties at home.
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Rank 33. Ramona Trattoria
Italian
The focaccia and pizza dough ferments for at least 48 days before it ever sees an oven, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Coorparoo trattoria. Pasta is hand-shaped daily with local organic eggs, each shape matched to its sauce with the seriousness of a structural engineer. The room runs on the kind of unhurried Italian hospitality that makes you feel like you were expected.
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Rank 35. C'est Bon
French
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Rank 36. Joy Restaurant
Modern Australian
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Rank 37. Restaurant Dan Arnold
Australian
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Rank 38. SUUM
Korean
Sixteen seats, a cave-dark room of blackened steel and raw timber, and a Korean omakase menu that changes with the seasons. SUUM is the kind of quiet, focused dining room where you arrive, accept a glass of housemade makgeolli with a snack, and hand the evening over to the kitchen. The two Chef Hat tasting menu runs a dozen or so courses, rooted in Korean tradition and clearly comfortable straying from it.
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Rank 39. Otto Brisbane
Italian
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Rank 40. Rogue Bistro
Modern Australian
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Rank 41. Firma Italian
Italian
The pasta here is made in-house, and the room takes itself seriously enough that you probably won't show up in thongs. Firma is a polished Italian restaurant inside Emporium Hotels on Grey Street, the kind of place built for a long lunch that quietly becomes dinner. The cooking runs from antipasti through to mains, with the precision you'd expect from a kitchen that holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.
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Rank 43. Essa Restaurant
Modern Australian
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Rank 44. Gerard's
Middle Eastern
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Rank 45. Perspective Dining
Modern Australian
Tasting menus run from three to nine courses here, plant-based or protein-led, so you can calibrate how serious an evening you want. Perspective is an intimate modern Australian fine-diner on Brunswick Street in Fortitude Valley, the kind of place where the kitchen leans hard into seasonal and local produce, and the room is styled to match that ambition. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it Two Chef Hats. Private dining seats up to fourteen.
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Rank 46. Pilloni
Italian
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Rank 47. Sokyo Brisbane
Japanese
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Rank 48. Pompette
French
Shimmering lights and a champagne list that takes its job seriously set the tone at this French bar and dining room inside The Star Brisbane. The menu runs the classics hard: escargot, lobster thermidor, duck à l'orange, steak au poivre. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat. The room is dressed for celebration, and the crowd tends to arrive already in the mood to have one.
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Rank 50. Dark Shepherd
Woodfire Mediterranean
Lamb is the organizing principle at this woodfire Mediterranean restaurant inside The Star Brisbane, where the open flame does most of the talking. The menu is built for sharing, moving through premium lamb, fresh seafood, and whatever the season offers, all with that particular smokiness you only get from cooking over actual fire. The sunken dining floor adds a surprisingly theatrical quality to a room that doesn't otherwise try too hard to impress you.
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Rank 51. e'cco bistro
Modern Australian
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Rank 52. The Brasserie at Naldham House
Modern Australian
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Rank 53. The Balfour Kitchen & Bar
Modern Australian
A restored Queenslander on a quiet New Farm street, this all-day spot shifts from a sunlit verandah breakfast to a wine bar with fairy lights in the courtyard once the evening cools. Modern Australian share plates and a thoughtfully chosen wine list fill the night hours, while mornings bring specialty coffee and brunch cocktails that suggest the kitchen doesn't take the AM too seriously. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.
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The Dragon King of the Sea gets a two-level laneway restaurant in Brisbane CBD, all contemporary theatre and open-air bar alongside tucked-away dining rooms. The menu runs on shared plates of modern Asian cooking, leaning hard into local seafood with flavours that don't apologize for themselves. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat, if that calibrates expectations. Dress like you mean it; this place clearly does.
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Rank 55. Layla
Middle Eastern
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Rank 56. Donna Chang
Chinese
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Rank 57. Ippin Japanese Dining
Japanese
The charcoal robata grill does real work here, turning out duck breast and Wagyu alongside a raw bar stocked with kingfish and sea urchin. Ippin is a Japanese dining room inside West Village that leans into the full spread, from tempura through to sashimi to grilled mains, in surrounds that feel dressed-up without being stiff. One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide. Probably not the place for a quick midweek ramen fix.
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Rank 58. Montrachet
French
The French wine list runs deep enough that you could spend the whole meal just reading it, which sets the tone for a French fine dining room that takes the classics seriously. The chef trained under Michelin kitchens, and the cooking shows it, seasonal and precise without tipping into the self-conscious. Bowen Hills is a quiet address for somewhere this polished, but regulars seem to prefer it that way.
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Rank 59. Deer Duck Bistro
Modern Australian
Fine dining in a suburb you'd never expect it, inside a room dressed in French Renaissance furniture, antique paintings, and crystal decanters that look borrowed from a minor aristocrat's estate sale. Deer Duck Bistro runs a degustation menu threading Modern Australian cooking through European technique, and the Australian Good Food Guide awarded it Two Chef Hats. The candles and old silver do a lot of work, but the kitchen keeps up.
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Rank 60. Marlowe
Modern Australian
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Rank 61. Ach Wine Bar & Bistro
Middle Eastern
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Rank 62. Clarence
Modern Australian
Seafood-forward in a way that feels like a point of view rather than a theme, Clarence is a relaxed brasserie on Fish Lane where the plates are generous and meant to be passed around. The room has that warm neighbourhood energy where conversation does half the work, and the cooking leans on produce the way some restaurants lean on adjectives. An Australian Good Food Guide Hat confirms the kitchen is doing more than keeping up.
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Rank 63. Hideki
Japanese
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Rank 65. Central Restaurant
Chinese
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Rank 66. Stanley
Chinese
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Rank 67. Winnifred’s
French
Soft lighting, warm tones, and a menu that leans hard into classic French bistro cooking occupy a quiet stretch of Arthur Street in Fortitude Valley. Winnifred's is the kind of place where a long lunch with a decent Burgundy seems not just reasonable but necessary. Steaks get proper sauces, seafood is treated without fuss, and the room manages to feel polished without making you nervous about your shoes.
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Rank 68. Blume
Modern Australian
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Rank 70. Melrose Restaurant and Rooftop Bar
Pan-Asian Thai
A rooftop bar and Pan-Asian restaurant at the quiet river end of Oxford Street, Melrose is the kind of place where the open sky does half the work. The menu runs through Southeast Asian technique with locally sourced produce, built for sharing, and the cocktail list is matched to the food rather than bolted on as an afterthought. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.
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Rank 72. Komeyui Brisbane
Japanese
Refined Japanese dining in a Spring Hill terrace, where the kitchen treats each plate as something closer to a still life than a meal. The team brings serious international training to bear on seasonal seafood and produce, with the kind of attention to temperature and texture that suggests they'd notice if you ate in the wrong order. It holds a One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide, and the room takes the whole thing as seriously as the food does.
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Rank 74. Attimi by Dario Manca
Italian
A 28-seat fine dining room on Given Terrace where the chef's Sardinian roots quietly run the kitchen, pulling contemporary Italian cooking away from white-tablecloth formality toward something warmer. Arancini shaped like mushrooms give you a sense of the playfulness on the plate. The footpath spills over into aperitivo territory when the weather cooperates. A two-hat entry in the Australian Good Food Guide for a room this small is a lot of weight for one terrace house to carry.
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Rank 75. Sono Portside
Japanese
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Rank 76. sAme sAme
Thai
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Rank 78. Honto
Japanese
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Rank 79. Bosco
Mediterranean
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Rank 80. Raes Dining Room
Modern Australian
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Rank 81. Herve's Restaurant and Bar
Modern French
Classic French technique with a Queensland pantry underneath it is the organizing idea at this modern French restaurant in Albion. The room reads sophisticated without being stiff, and the menu moves through French foundations with quiet Basque touches and local produce doing the heavy lifting. A tasting menu is available for the full commitment crowd. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.
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Rank 82. Bar Heather
Modern Australian
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Rank 83. Beach Byron Bay
Modern New American
Tables at Beach Byron Bay look directly onto Clarkes Beach, which means the ocean does a lot of the decorating before the food even arrives. It's a waterfront restaurant leaning on Northern Rivers produce, with a menu that shifts with the season, so the kitchen has a built-in excuse to keep things interesting. The wine list is sommelier-curated, and a casual kiosk handles daytime drop-ins for those who can't commit to a full sit-down.
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Rank 84. Dorsia
Australian New American
Soft lighting and a sand-and-sunset color palette set the tone at this polished Byron Bay restaurant, where the cooking leans into coastal produce without making a fuss about it. Murray cod with pickled green mango or a lobster Parker roll suggest a kitchen that knows its way around local waters. The room manages to feel relaxed and dressed-up at once, which is a harder trick than it sounds in a town this devoted to linen shirts.
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Rank 85. The Hut Byron Bay
Mediterranean
A converted old schoolhouse on a quiet road outside Byron, The Hut is a lunch spot that does Mediterranean food the way a long weekend should feel. Whitewashed walls, polished floors, and garden light filtering through big windows set a mood that's part coastal shack, part somewhere you'd actually eat well. The menu moves through Spanish, Greek, and Italian territory without a lot of fuss, and the Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.