The Best Places in Australia

A cocktail bar and restaurant on the Sunshine Coast that takes the French Quarter seriously enough to earn an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat, which is a commitment in Maroochydore. The kitchen runs French technique through a New Orleans lens, so the menu leans toward bold flavors and premium produce rather than Parisian restraint. Handcrafted cocktails make it worth arriving early, and the room is polished enough that you'll want to linger.

Orso is a neighborhood restaurant in a Victorian building on Kensington Road, with bluestone walls and a veranda trimmed in cast-iron lacework, so you'll want to look like you meant to come. Regulars drift in and out while the room keeps things loose, and the kitchen takes the seasonal fish and the open-fire cooking far more seriously than the mood suggests. The wine list leans Australian, French, and Italian.

A neighbourhood Italian osteria a short walk from Coogee Beach, where house-made pasta and focaccia share the menu with fire-grilled octopus and the kind of seasonal specials that give regulars an excuse to come back. The room leans into trailing ferns and cane pendants, which sounds like a lot but somehow settles into somewhere easy to stay for a long lunch. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.

Osteria Oggi is an Italian restaurant on Pirie Street where you can claim a seat at the bar if you're flying solo, or take a spot at the long wooden tables in the back and let the room sort out your social life. The menu leans toward sharing, with two tasting menus for people who'd rather not decide. It holds a Michelin Guide selection and one Good Food Guide Chef Hat, and the kitchen takes feeding you personally.

Lunch on a deck at Hamilton Island's northernmost tip, looking straight out at the Coral Sea and the Whitsundays scattered beyond. Pebble Beach is the daytime dining room at qualia resort, and the setting does a lot of the work, though the contemporary Australian kitchen keeps pace with produce sourced from farmers and growers around the country. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.

A fusion restaurant in the Adelaide CBD where seasonal Australian produce gets pulled toward global influences without any particular apology for it. The room has a rustic-contemporary feel that leans into sharing plates and noise, the kind of place where the table next to you orders something you immediately wish you'd noticed. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

The dining room looks out over the estate's own cool-climate vines, which makes ordering the wine feel less like a choice and more like an obvious conclusion. This is a winery restaurant in the Adelaide Hills doing seasonal Modern Australian food with the kind of produce that barely needs an introduction. The Australian Good Food Guide gave it a Chef Hat, and the setting does a lot of the heavy lifting, though the kitchen clearly isn't coasting on the view.

A Josper grill anchors the kitchen at this Latin American fire-cooking restaurant near Smith Street, where the smoke and the playlist both run loud. Tasting menus, à la carte, bottomless brunch on weekends, tacos on Tuesdays, Wagyu on Wednesdays: they keep the calendar full enough that regulars barely need to think. The cocktails have attitude to match. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.

A laneway Italian tucked into Exchange Place, Pinco Italo runs on the philosophy that dinner should take a while. The menu moves between comforting classics and sharper contemporary plates, all built for sharing, and the drinks list is put together with care. It's warm and unpretentious in the way that's harder to pull off than it looks, and the Australian Good Food Guide has given it a Chef Hat to prove the kitchen is keeping pace.

Behind a Beaujolais-red door on Commonwealth Street, Poly reads as a wine bar until the food arrives and quietly takes over. The coal-fire grill drives everything, lending smoke and umami to small, shareable plates that have built a devoted following across Sydney. The wine list is genuine and well-chosen, but it knows its supporting role. Book a nook, order more than you think you need, and let the kitchen settle the debate.

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.

Red and white plates, chalkboard menus on burgundy walls, tables worn to a comfortable shine: this Paddington bistro is doing its level best to make Oxford Street feel like the Marais. The menu takes the same unapologetic stance, running pâté en croûte and vol-au-vent alongside veal Rossini with foie gras and truffle. No reinvention, no apology. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.

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.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame a sculpture park rolling down toward Western Port, which sets up the dining room's whole argument before the menu arrives. This is a Modern Australian à la carte restaurant on the Mornington Peninsula, with a wine list drawn entirely from Victorian producers. The kitchen leans into local produce, and the service team seems to genuinely enjoy explaining what's on the plate, which is rarer than it should be.

Floor-to-ceiling windows look straight out over Balmoral Beach toward Manly and North Head, which makes the room feel less like a restaurant and more like a very well-catered boat. This is a relaxed fine dining spot on The Esplanade, serving a modern Australian à la carte menu with Mediterranean leanings and local produce. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat. Getting there by water taxi from Circular Quay is, apparently, a genuine option.

A lakeside dining room tucked beside Norwest Lake in the Hills District, Quoi Dining runs a modern French menu with Australian produce woven through it. The setting is quiet enough that conversation doesn't compete with anything, which suits the careful, technique-forward cooking. It's a fine-dining room that draws the special-occasion crowd, and the Australian Good Food Guide has given it a Chef Hat.

An open kitchen doubles as a stage at this omakase and theater dining restaurant in Redfern, where two chefs work in near-silence while guests sit close enough to hear the knife. The rain-inspired interior tilts quiet and contemplative, which sets the right mood for a meal built around precision and patience. Chef Raita Noda has been running omakase in Sydney for years, and this is his latest, most considered room.

Cocktails named after Turkish cities set the tone at this moody Kingston dining room, where the chef runs Istanbul flavors through an Australian lens. Subdued lighting, sparkling glassware, and intimate table settings give it a date-night pull, while the menu moves between char-grilled lamb and Wagyu skewers with enough ambition to feel like a proper evening out. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.

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.

Grapevines press up against the windows at this Modern Australian dining room on a working vineyard estate in the Hunter Valley. The kitchen leans on its own garden and a network of small local farms, pulling the menu toward whatever the season insists on, with a Mediterranean looseness threading through the cooking. The estate's own wines fill the list. One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide.

Art deco prints on the walls, Nina Simone on the speakers, and fresh pasta rolled every morning: Restaurant Santino is a laneway Italian bistro in central Wollongong that holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat. The rotating pasta menu means regulars have an excuse to keep coming back, and the Amaro list and cellar wine selection suggest the kitchen isn't the only thing taken seriously here.

Dry-aged steaks and fresh seafood in a steakhouse that somehow skips the macho-shrine decor most of the genre relies on. Rich & Rare sits in West End's West Village precinct with a mood that's more "open a good bottle" than "here's your complimentary steak knife set." The Australian Good Food Guide gave it a Chef Hat. Bring a group or sneak in for a solo whisky; the room handles both without making either feel wrong.

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.

Dry-aged seafood sits at the center of everything here, a Japanese restaurant on Queen Street where the counter omakase and chirashi bowls draw a quiet, loyal lunch crowd from the surrounding offices. The menu runs from quick sashimi plates to a full omakase sitting, so the room works for both a grabbed weekday meal and something slower. The Australian Good Food Guide gave it a Chef Hat, which tracks with the precision on the plate.

The wood-fired grill does a lot of the talking at this waterfront restaurant and bar, where the menu leans hard into Far North Queensland seafood and regional produce. The deck looks out over the marina and the mountains beyond, which is a combination that makes it easy to stay for sunset whether or not you planned to. A One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide, and the kind of place Cairns locals bring people they want to impress.

Dinner here is dinner and a show, in the most literal sense: chefs work a teppan grill tableside while you sit close enough to feel the heat. Samurai is a teppanyaki restaurant on King William Road, the kind of place where Wagyu lands in front of you still sizzling. The Australian Good Food Guide gave it a Chef Hat. Groups and corporate bookings fill the room, which means the energy tends toward celebration whether you planned on that or not.

Lunch on a winery estate in the Swan Valley, with vineyard rows framing the window and estate pours arriving alongside. The kitchen leans Modern Australian with a wood-fired streak, turning local produce into the kind of meal that makes the drive feel like the whole point. The Australian Good Food Guide has given it a Chef Hat. Sit outside under old vines if the day allows; the alfresco tables fill fast with people who've clearly done this before.

Serafino sits on a winery estate in McLaren Vale, ringed by ancient gums and a lake that makes the dining room feel like it wandered in from a painting. The restaurant runs a Modern Australian menu with Italian leanings, leaning hard into seasonal produce, so the food shifts more than the view does. Weddings fill the calendar, but the cellar door keeps it honest. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

A tandoor and a dosa menu in the same room as chilli saffron foam tells you everything about where Seven Spices is headed. It's a modern Indian restaurant in Lane Cove that pulls from street food, slow curries, and flame-cooked classics without treating any of them as lesser than the others. The room skews toward families and celebrations, and the Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

Sandwiched between two heritage sandstone buildings down a Surry Hills laneway, Shaffa is a Middle Eastern restaurant and bar built around shared plates and a deliberately festive mood. The space pulls from the energy of a bazaar, all bold spices and low lighting, and it suits a long table of friends more than a quiet Tuesday. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

The bifold windows fold back so the ocean breeze does half the decorating at this casual all-day restaurant on the Lennox Head beachfront. The menu runs Modern Australian with a local-produce lean, moving from avo toast in the morning to grilled octopus and massaman-glazed beef by evening. It's the kind of place where a beach walk becomes a long lunch without anyone quite noticing the transition. One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide.

A share-format Modern Australian restaurant near Circular Quay, Silvester's sits on a corner that's had butchers and serious produce on it for generations. The menu moves from smaller plates through to bigger dishes, building in a way that feels designed rather than accidental. The room leans convivial rather than hushed. An Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.

The menu at this fine-dining room in Penrith is built around a loose rule: nothing on the plate has traveled more than 50 kilometres to get there. That radius pulls in the Hawkesbury, the Blue Mountains foothills, and the Nepean Valley, and the kitchen leans into it rather than hiding it behind French technique. Modern Australian cooking with a genuine sense of where it is, and a One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide to back the ambition.

Sitting among the vineyards on Polish Hill Road, this modern Australian restaurant at the Pikes winery puts Clare Valley produce at the centre of everything, down to vegetables cut from the kitchen garden out back. The menu shifts with the seasons, and the wine list runs deep into Pikes' cellar. An Australian Good Food Guide Hat confirms what the regulars already know. Relaxed enough for a long lunch, considered enough to earn the drive.

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.

St Hugo is a winery restaurant in a glass building planted in the middle of a Barossa vineyard, so the view is mostly vines and the wine list is mostly the house's own. The menu is short and follows the seasons, with poultry, pork and lamb cooked carefully enough that nobody feels cheated by the lack of options. Expect a lunch crowd in nice linen, gently pacing themselves between the cellar door and the drive home.