The Best Places in Australia

Corn isn't a side note here; it's the whole argument. Maiz is a casual Mexican restaurant on Enmore Road where the chef has built the menu around masa in earnest, from esquites broth sharp with lime and seven-chile mayonnaise to tetelas, corn pockets that happen to work for gluten-free and vegan diners without advertising the fact. Sydney's Mexican scene is not exactly crowded with this level of conviction.

Perched on the Western Broadwalk of the Sydney Opera House, this modern Australian restaurant draws on Indigenous food traditions that predate the building by a considerable stretch. Chef Mark Olive builds the menu around native ingredients, wattle seed, bush honey, pepperberries, saltbush, things most Sydney dining rooms treat as garnish rather than foundation. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

Neil Perry's Italian restaurant in Double Bay is built around the aperitivo rhythm: Martinis and spritzes arrive first, then antipasti, housemade pasta, seafood, and steak. The beef program leans into rare Australian breeds, including grass-fed Chianina, cooked simply enough that the sourcing does the talking. Ranked 27th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, though the room reads more like a generous Italian trattoria than a temple to beef.

The open grill is the room's focal point, its smoke threading through exposed brick and vintage clutter to announce that this is an Argentine asado restaurant, not a steakhouse cosplaying as one. Surry Hills regulars fill the long tables for dry-aged beef cooked over fire with patience rather than theatre, and a wine list that runs Buenos Aires and Barossa in easy company. It placed 36th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.

The Art Deco banking hall on Hunter Street sets the stage: marble columns, dark timber, and a warm golden light that makes a Wednesday feel like an occasion. This is a steakhouse, and the beef programme is the point, with dry-aged cuts cooked over a wood and charcoal grill. The wine list is one of the more serious in the country. Ranked 38th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which seems about right for a room this sure of itself.

Harbour views through floor-to-ceiling glass, leather banquettes, and Australian art on the walls set the tone at this upscale steak restaurant inside Sydney's International Hotel. The kitchen dry-ages Wagyu and pasture-raised beef in-house, then cooks over wood and charcoal with the confidence of people who don't need to explain themselves. It landed at number 33 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which tracks.

An in-house dry-ageing room in an old industrial space in Marrickville sets the tone for what this open-fire steakhouse is about: Australian beef handled with patience, then finished over live flame with more discipline than drama. The room keeps the building's bones exposed, the service keeps the formality in its pocket, and the whole place carries the quiet confidence of somewhere that doesn't need to explain itself. It landed at number 59 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.

An open fire grill anchors everything at Scott Pickett's modern Australian restaurant in South Yarra, where dry-aged beef meets live coals with the kind of discipline that makes you stop mid-bite. The room runs to warm wood and natural textures, the wine list leans Australian, and the service has that easy confidence that never tips into theatre. Ranked among the World's Best Steak Restaurants, it holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat too.

A beautifully restored heritage building in the CBD sets the stage: high ceilings, original detailing, and a terrace that opens toward the skyline. Shell House is a contemporary steakhouse where the kitchen dry-ages Australian beef before it meets an open fire grill, with the wider menu showing the same restraint. It landed at number 85 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which should tell you roughly what the room expects of you, dress-wise.

Perched on View Point in central Bendigo, Alium is a modern Australian restaurant built around seasonal produce and a dining room that actually feels like it wants you there. The menu shifts with what's good rather than what's expected, and the team runs service with enough warmth to soften even the most reluctant regional-city dinner guest. An Australian Good Food Guide One Chef Hat restaurant.

Allegra sits upstairs from a pizzeria, and the only thing the two floors share is a wood-fired oven that does double duty. Up top is a fully vegan tasting menu of five courses that changes monthly, with the flame-kissed cabbage making it clear nobody here is apologizing for the lack of meat. It's a sit-down, dress-a-little-nicer affair with a loyal following, so book well ahead. Michelin lists it as a Selected Restaurant.

Every table looks out over Windsor's Edge Vineyard, which makes it hard to focus on the menu, though the kitchen holds its own with Modern Australian cooking that earns the restaurant an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat. In warmer months, the verandah is the obvious move; in winter, the fireplace inside picks up the slack. Hunter Valley wines feature heavily, as you'd expect from a fully licensed restaurant sitting directly above the vines.

The nightly degustation menu changes around whatever you tell the chef you want to eat, which is either a dream or a mild anxiety, depending on how decisive you are. This intimate private kitchen in a West Leederville close seats a small room beneath softly glowing pendants and a stacked stone open counter, and the Asian cooking is precise enough to hold an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.

The wine list runs to over 200 bottles, with forty-odd available by the glass, which tells you what Annata is really about before you've even looked at the food menu. It's a modern European bistro on the Lower North Shore, the kind of neighbourhood place where the kitchen sends out precise seasonal cooking and the room genuinely expects you to linger. The alfresco garden is dog-friendly, the set menu comes with wine pairings built in, and locals treat it like a second living room.

White tablecloths, chandelier lighting, and walls hung with artwork set the tone at this Italian restaurant in North Sydney, where the menu leans on tradition without pretending the last few decades of cooking didn't happen. The room is housed in a heritage building that gives it the kind of bones a fit-out budget alone can't buy. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.

Named for the Pitjantjatjara word for bush plum, this grill room sits inside Ayers Rock Resort with ghost gums pressing against the windows and Uluru somewhere just beyond them. It's a proper sit-down Modern Australian restaurant, working native ingredients like desert lime and wattleseed into seasonal à la carte plates and firing serious cuts over the grill. The Australian Good Food Guide awards it a Chef Hat, which is a reasonable thing to earn this far from anywhere.

The ancient ironbark oven in the corner runs the show at this intimate restaurant and wine bar in Blackheath, lending everything on the table a convincing argument for open-fire cooking. The menu is Mediterranean share plates built around local produce, with Blue Mountains wines and beer filling in the rest. Mountain villages aren't usually this good at sitting still, but the room earns it.

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.

Marble counters meet raw hardwood on the fifth floor of a North Sydney hotel, setting the scene for a wine bar and all-day Italian restaurant that leans into Italo-Australian cooking: pasta with native Davidson plum, burrata alongside local persimmon. The room is polished without being stiff, and the menu moves comfortably from a working breakfast through to sharing plates over a bottle in the evening.

Vineyard views stretch out from the dining room at this cellar-door restaurant on the Mornington Peninsula, where the wine list draws from grapes grown on the property itself. The kitchen runs a modern Australian menu built around estate produce and regional seasonals, the kind of place where the sourcing conversation happens before you've ordered. An Australian Good Food Guide One Chef Hat sits on the record.

A little penguin colony shares the Bass Strait oceanfront with dinner guests at this farm-to-table restaurant perched above the North-West coastline. The kitchen works from the family property's volcanic soil, so the menu shifts with whatever the land is actually doing that week. Modern Australian cooking, refined enough for a special occasion but grounded in the kind of produce that makes the mainland jealous. One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide.

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.

Red velvet booths, blue velvet seating, and a Champagne garden facing the Esplanade, all under one roof at this Italian restaurant inside the Pacific Beach Resort in Mooloolaba. The kitchen leans into Sunshine Coast produce and seafood from the nearby port, turning them into the kind of composed, plated dishes that earned a One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide. Dress a little, linger over pasta, and let someone else worry about the drive home.

The char-grill does most of the talking at this casual seafood restaurant and bar in Port Macquarie, where the menu runs from fresh oysters to whole baked fish and keeps things deliberately uncomplicated. An all-NSW wine list and local craft beer on tap back it up. The room has the kind of easy, good-looking design that works equally well for a post-work drink, a shared feast, or something that quietly tips into a special occasion.

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.

A European-Australian bistro a short walk from Circular Quay, Bistro George holds an Australian Good Food Guide Hat and pitches itself at the full range: solo bar snacks, work lunches, leisurely dinners. The menu leans on local produce and lands somewhere between Continental and modern Australian, with a wine list broad enough to keep both the table orderer and the sommelier-curious happy.

A casual restaurant in Blackheath where the chef's Mexican heritage shows up quietly in the menu without making a big announcement about it. The setting is chic but unhurried, the kind of place that suits a long lunch after a morning walk in the Blue Mountains. Small plates and larger mains share the menu with cocktails, and the produce leans heavily on what's growing nearby. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

A two-level seafood restaurant on Broadbeach's main strip, BLOWFISH pulls a crowd that dresses up a little and stays for rounds. The team behind Moo Moo runs this one, and the formula is similar: big room, confident cooking, a wine list with ambition. Moreton Bay bug rolls and grilled WA rock lobster do most of the heavy lifting on a menu that mixes surf and turf without apology. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

Perched right on the edge of Lake Daylesford, this French-leaning restaurant earns its water views by actually delivering on what's inside. Lunch and dinner run at a pace that feels deliberately unhurried, with a covered deck for warm days and a snug interior when the Victorian winter sets in. The menu leans classical, the kind of place where port jus and bearnaise sauce appear without apology. One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide.

The upstairs dining room at this modern Australian restaurant sits above the Ross River, with the city skyline filling the windows and the kind of breeze that makes you order another glass. The menu leans on North Queensland's seasonal produce, and the Australian Good Food Guide has given it a Chef Hat. Downstairs, Botaniq Bar handles cocktails, gin, and sunsets at a different pace entirely.

French technique and Australian instincts share the menu at this warm Launceston bistro, where the kitchen edits each plate down to only what earns its place. The room is intimate enough that it feels personal rather than formal, the kind of dinner where the cooking does the talking without announcing itself. An Australian Good Food Guide Hat sits on the shelf.

The custom-built grill and wood-fired pizza oven are the stars of the open kitchen at this fire-and-smoke restaurant inside Bright Tank Brewing Company. The menu runs WA produce through flames and charcoal, pairing well with something cold from the taps next door. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat, though the vibe stays comfortably unpretentious, the kind of place where a T-bone and a beer feel like the obvious and correct decision.

Darling Harbour views frame every table at this theatrical modern Australian share-plates restaurant inside W Sydney. The menu leans on local growers and coastal producers, with wild-caught seafood making a strong case for itself as the room fills and the energy climbs toward something noticeably louder than dinner. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

The dry-aged beef is handled in-house, which tells you most of what you need to know about this European-style steakhouse inside a Griffith hotel. The menu leans hard into Riverina provenance, local olives, cheese, and seasonal produce alongside the beef, and the room delivers leather seating, blue carpet, and a marble open kitchen. An Australian Good Food Guide One Chef Hat steakhouse this far into wine-and-wheat country is a genuine surprise.

Perched inside Paulett Winery in the Clare Valley, this alfresco Modern Australian restaurant draws its menu partly from an on-site Indigenous bush food garden you can wander before sitting down. The chef folds native ingredients into dishes that lean global without losing the landscape, and the estate wines are right there if you need a reason to order another round. It holds a one hat rating from the Australian Good Food Guide.

The open grill is the centerpiece here, not just the cooking method, and the whole room is arranged around watching things burn in the best possible sense. Carnivore is a Mediterranean steakhouse on Port Road where premium cuts share the menu with seafood, and the wine list runs local and international. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat, which fits the polished, fire-forward room. A solid pick when someone else is expensing dinner.

Perched above the Coral Sea on Hamilton Island, this open-air restaurant and bar is where a slow lunch has a way of sliding into dinner without anyone minding. The menu comes from Josh and Julie Niland, with shared plates built around seasonal Australian seafood and produce. The whole thing is designed to feel unhurried, which is exactly as difficult as it sounds when the view involves turquoise water and swaying palms.

Softly lit and tucked into Chippendale's Kensington Street, Chez Beckett's is a modern French bistro where the industrial bones of the building meet white-tablecloth formality without feeling stuffy. The menu leans into the classics, escargots, tartare, duck, done with Australian seasonal produce threaded through. The wine list is curated and the cocktails are genuinely considered, which the after-work crowd in the corner seems to have figured out already.

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.