The Best Places in Australia

Twenty-four seats tucked inside a heritage building in Chinatown, One or Two is a late-night cocktail bar that borrows its soul from the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi: warm wood, minimal fuss, the feeling that nothing is permanent and you should probably order another drink. The bartender behind it modeled the whole thing on a Tokyo midnight-diner TV series, and the vibe tracks, intimate and a little cinematic.

You ring a bell to get in, which either sounds precious or exactly right once you're seated inside this converted Gold Rush bank in the Victorian high country. The restaurant runs a multi-course tasting menu with a Japanese lean, built around hyper-local produce. About eighteen small plates arrive in four bento-style rounds, and the cooking is precise without being cold. A Discovery listing from The 50 puts it on the national map.

A back bar stocked with around 350 bottles, ten new ones arriving each week, tells you everything about what The Elysian Whisky Bar is trying to do. This Fitzroy whisky bar leans hard into rare and unusual bottlings, with flights for the curious and a proper cocktail list for anyone dragged along by an enthusiast. A bar food menu rounds things out, so no one has to drink on an empty stomach while debating single malts.

Each of the 199 rooms at this nine-story hotel in Canberra's Braddon neighborhood has its own bespoke artwork, commissioned from New York artist Thomas Bucich. The building wraps around a landscaped garden atrium, which does more for a lobby than most lobbies manage. The in-house restaurant leans on local suppliers, and the bar pours two beers brewed exclusively for the hotel by the neighboring BentSpoke microbrewery.

Perched above Piccadilly Valley in the Adelaide Hills, this adults-only boutique hotel estate has a cellar stocking over 1,300 labels, which tells you something about the priorities here. There are two restaurants, a day spa, a valley-view pool, and a billiards room, and the whole operation carries the quiet confidence of somewhere that has never felt the need to try very hard.

Concrete ceilings, clay walls, vintage furnishings, and original artworks set the tone at this design-forward boutique hotel in Canberra's NewActon precinct. Ovolo runs the same playbook everywhere it lands: moody, considered interiors with a free yoga class and gym views over the lake folded into the package. Monster Kitchen and Bar handles everything from morning flat whites to evening drinks without breaking the aesthetic.

Reclaimed wood, rough concrete, and restored vintage furniture fill the rooms of this design hotel tucked into three floors of Canberra's Nishi building, a mixed-use landmark also housing an arthouse cinema, galleries, and a handful of bars and restaurants. Aesop in the bathrooms and plush beds keep it from feeling too earnest about the aesthetic. If you still picture Canberra as a car park between ministries, this place will politely revise your assumptions.

Moon windows above the bed frame the night sky, which is either the most romantic detail or the most unsettling depending on your mood. This boutique hotel in the Adelaide Hills runs fourteen suites, each with a sunken lounge and freestanding bath, plus a spa housed in a former National Trust building using locally farmed Jurlique products. Wallabies on the trails, indigenous Dreamtime storytelling, and spring-fed hot pools round out a stay that leans hard into the landscape.

Afternoon tea arrives at 2:30 sharp in the Lounge, a detail that tells you everything about this hotel's disposition. The Park Hyatt sits between two government circles in Canberra, and the architecture leans into that, a restrained, almost stately building that suits dignitaries more than weekend revelers. Rooms are bright and classically furnished, the service is buttoned-up, and the black-and-white marble bathrooms feel like a slightly bolder chapter in an otherwise composed novel.

The Byredo toiletries and free films tell you exactly what this compact boutique hotel cares about: the room itself. There's no restaurant, bar, or spa, but the Realm Precinct handles all of that within easy walking distance. What stays in-house is a lounge and library with floor-to-ceiling windows, communal desks, and fireplaces, a setup that works as well for a government consultant as for a weekend escape.

Two converted 19th-century warehouses on Salamanca Place, now a luxury boutique hotel where original timbers and exposed brick share the room with living plants and green-tiled bathrooms. Every room runs a little different, and some have balconies or soaking tubs. No restaurant on site, but the waterfront is right there and so is most of what makes Hobart worth visiting. The Michelin Guide has it in their Selected Hotels list.

A Victorian villa on a Glebe hilltop, where a fifth-generation descendant of the original owner still pours the drinks and his wife teaches Spanish cooking in the kitchen. It's a boutique guesthouse with antiques gathered across several continents, a Tasmanian-stocked honesty bar in the Drawing Room, and intact servants' quarters available to guests. The kind of place where the history isn't framed on a wall but living in the next room.

Six suites inside a Victorian house that opens onto an uncompromising modernist addition, Drift House is a small, family-run hotel in the seaside town of Port Fairy. Each suite runs its own way, a bathtub here, a fireplace there, but all feel more like apartments than hotel rooms. Breakfast is the only meal served, which turns out to be a perfectly reasonable excuse to borrow one of the cruiser bikes and pedal around town. It holds a Michelin Key.

One of the last original oceanfront buildings on the Yamba coast, Il Delfino is a five-suite inn where white walls, mid-century furniture, and murals by local artists keep things simple and breezy. Every suite faces the ocean, some with balconies open to the sound of waves, and terraced patios with striped daybeds spill right down to the rocks. Cafés, the ocean pool, and the main beach are a short walk away. Michelin has given it one Key.

A wood-fired oven anchors this cozy Neapolitan pizzeria tucked into a quiet residential pocket well clear of Melbourne's centre, where the streets are low and leafy and the pace is considerably calmer. The pasta pulls as much weight as the pizza here, a combination rare enough that 50 Top Pizza handed it a Best Pasta Proposal award, alongside a ranking of 28th in the world. The kitchen imports Italian ingredients seriously and handles dietary needs without making a fuss about it.

A hotel attached to what is, by some measures, the largest shopping mall in Australia, which is either a selling point or a warning depending on your relationship with retail therapy. Rooms lean Art Deco with a contemporary edge, in keeping with the MGallery brand. There's a pool, a spa called Holism Retreat, a modern Italian restaurant, and a rooftop bar with afternoon High Tea for when you've walked yourself to ruin downstairs.

A corner pizza restaurant in a Victorian terrace in Balmain, with sidewalk tables when the weather cooperates and a line out the door when it doesn't. The chef obsesses over fermentation and dough in a way that reads less like trend-chasing and more like a genuine fixation, and the extra virgin olive oil gets its own casting credit across the menu. 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific has it at number three.

Part of the Art Series Hotels group, The Chen dedicates its entire identity to Zhong Chen, a Chinese-born Pop-influenced painter whose bold, colorful work fills the property. The hotel occupies five floors of a Box Hill high-rise, with 100 suites offering sweeping views across suburban Melbourne. The on-site Golden Lily restaurant runs upscale Cantonese with Shanghai and Sichuan additions, and the surrounding Whitehorse Towers development adds further dining options nearby.

Stone walls thick enough to silence Fremantle's port noise, original beams overhead, and a plaque outside reminding you that the last guests here weren't exactly voluntary. This heritage hotel was built as cottages for the guards of the old convict prison, and the bones remain: timber floors, hand-crafted furniture, and family cottages with private courtyards. A Michelin Selected Hotel, and one where checking in doubles as a reasonably haunting history lesson.

A former drive-up motor inn on a legendary surf break near the Gold Coast, Halcyon House has been remade into a boutique hotel where no two rooms look alike, all decorated by Brisbane designer Anna Spiro with a level of detail that borders on the obsessive. The heated saltwater pool and a spa are on hand, but it's the kind of place where the real draw is stepping off the sand and into something that looks nothing like a beach motel should.

Eight freestanding pavilions perched over the River Derwent, each named for an Australian artist whose work hangs in the adjacent Museum of Old and New Art. It's a hotel, more or less, though "museum guesthouse with a vineyard" gets closer to the truth. Rooms run to full kitchens and laundry, shared facilities include a heated infinity pool and sauna, and the Moorilla wine bar pours from grapes grown on the same land you're sleeping on.

Coolangatta is the laid-back end of the Gold Coast, where most hotels lean hard into the surfboard-and-rattan aesthetic. The Pink Hotel skips all of that: risqué murals, neon art in every room, polished concrete floors, and a tattoo shop off the lobby. The rooftop cabanas are genuinely unpretentious, the Janitors Closet piano bar sets a mood, and Eddie's Grub House pours whisky while live music goes. A hotel that feels like it wandered in from somewhere else entirely.

Seventy-five acres of rolling hills in the Scenic Rim, less than an hour from the Gold Coast but feeling considerably further from anything. Beechmont Estate is a luxury cabin and pavilion retreat where the main draw is the Gondwana Rainforest pressing in on all sides. Days fill with spa treatments, guided hikes, or hot air balloon rides if you're feeling ambitious. The farm-to-table Paddock Restaurant anchors the central pavilion, and the Michelin Guide has selected it.

A plunge pool off your room, a low-chlorine swimming pool for the house, and a strict adults-only door policy: 28 Degrees keeps Byron Bay's signature looseness while quietly upgrading most of it. It runs more like a guest house than a hotel, intimate in scale but polished in the rooms. The compact town center is walkable, and the beach is just past that. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Five suites and a freestanding three-bedroom cottage in a quiet residential pocket a short walk from Byron Bay's main beach: Bask & Stow keeps things deliberately small. The architect drew from Palm Springs modernism and Bauhaus, so the look is clean lines, blond wood, and white walls, which some guests clock as Scandinavian anyway. All rooms have kitchenettes, most have bathtubs, and there's a plunge pool in the gardens for the rest of the time.

The one-acre lagoon pool comes with a white sand beach and, crucially, none of Queensland's famously homicidal marine life. This large resort sits inside Sanctuary Cove, a country club and marina community on Hope Island between Gold Coast and Brisbane, and despite 251 rooms it manages to feel more private enclave than convention hotel. Rooms blend tropical ease with Art Deco touches, and there are two golf courses, one of them the only Arnold Palmer design in Australia.

A private island on the Noosa River where the resort has no restaurant, just an executive chef cooking whatever you feel like that day. Richard Branson and Brett Godfrey's getaway takes a maximum of 22 guests, then proceeds to spoil them with facilities sized for something four times larger. Villas, personal service, and activities on request make this less a hotel and more a very expensive favor from someone you've just met.

Three pavilions tucked into Bouddi National Park, about 90 minutes up the coast from Sydney, with a penthouse suite in the main house and a pool that makes doing absolutely nothing feel like a plan. Pretty Beach House is a small, self-contained resort where the options run from bush walks and indigenous cultural experiences to staring at the greenery until dinner. The Michelin Guide has it on its selected hotels list.

The name is a timer: dough ferments for 48 hours before it ever sees a flame, which gives the crust at this Neapolitan-style pizzeria in South Yarra its particular lightness. Exposed red brick, an informal room, and a menu that splits into classic, gourmet, and seasonal pies, including one topped with kangaroo salami and macadamia pesto via a collaboration with Aboriginal producers. Homemade gnocchi round things out. It ranked 93rd on 50 Top Pizza World.

Seven rooms tucked above a fine-dining restaurant inside an old flour mill on the Tamar River, with the original timber bones still visible in every corner. The fabrics run dark and lush, the furniture and bath products are all locally made, and the full restaurant menu is available via room service for nights when dressing is simply too much to ask. Guests also get a private bar and breakfast with the chef, which is either charming or alarming depending on the morning.

The central pavilion was shaped to look like a windswept sand dune, and the rest of this beachfront resort in Byron Bay follows that logic, low-slung and contemporary, tucked into the forest above Belongil Beach. Villas come in four nature-inspired categories, all timber floors and private terraces. There's a spa, an infinity pool, a cocktail bar, and a general flip-flop-friendly vibe that makes "dressing for dinner" feel like a foreign concept.

Tucked between an idyllic beach and Noosa's UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, this family-friendly boutique resort runs 22 studio rooms and 10 two-bedroom apartments through a quietly Art Deco-inflected, minimalist aesthetic. Two pools, one for adults and one for families, cover the obvious bases, and the on-site café, bar and restaurant, Outer Square, handles meals without anyone needing to drive anywhere. Peregian Beach sits a few minutes south of Noosa Heads, which is either a selling point or the whole reason you booked.

Fifty minutes north of Adelaide, this small Provençal-style guesthouse sits in the Barossa Valley with some of the oldest Grenache vines in Australia growing nearby. Rooms run toward French farmhouse comfort and the service is personal enough that staff remember things. For events, the property calls in Melbourne's Vue de monde to cater, which tells you exactly how seriously it takes itself, and that's not a criticism.

The reception desk is a vintage Citroën truck, which sets the tone for this quietly stylish boutique hotel carved out of a 1980s motel in a Maroochydore riverside neighborhood. No hint of the motor-lodge origins survives in the warm, minimalist rooms, and the magnesium-infused pool does its best to dissolve the memory of the drive up. The Sunshine Coast beaches are minutes away, and a food truck handles breakfast without any fuss.

Roman-style pizza by the slice in a small, pretty room on one of Surry Hills' better streets, with a courtyard that fills up when the weather cooperates. The dough gets a long ferment, which gives it the structure to carry serious toppings drawn from Italian regional traditions without going soggy. Appetizers, salads, a pasta or two, and desserts round things out. The cocktail list gets more attention than you'd expect from a slice shop.

A wood-fired Neapolitan pizza shop in Cronulla, right where the Sydney suburbs give way to beach town. The family runs the floor with the kind of unhurried attention you can't hire in, and the dough, soft and properly charred from the oven, does the heavy lifting. Red pies and white pies share the menu alongside salads and a tiramisu that no one is skipping. It ranked 25th on the 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific list, which checks out.

Forty-five acres of subtropical rainforest, ten minutes from Byron Bay's main drag, is where Crystalbrook Byron has set up its 92 suites. The luxury boutique resort leans hard into natural materials and soft neutrals, with a spa that keeps many guests from ever leaving the property, plus a restaurant, a verandah bar, and a pool bar for those who do surface. The Michelin Guide has it on their selected hotels list.

Limestone walls from 1875 anchor one wing of this full-service resort on the Mornington Peninsula, where Port Phillip Bay sits on one side and the open ocean on the other. The rooms run across three wings, all pulling toward a vaguely European, cosmopolitan look. Downstairs you'll find a spa and bathhouse, a pool deck, a twenties-style cocktail bar, and a flagship restaurant by Scott Pickett. An hour and a half from Melbourne, and firmly in wine country.

The mineral water drawn from a spring on the property runs the spa and fills at least one suite's bath, which tells you what kind of resort this is. Set on 200 pastoral acres of the Bellarine Peninsula, Lon is a wellness retreat where the suites read more like private residences, with kitchenettes and an in-room seasonal dining menu standing in for a restaurant. The Bellarine's wineries handle the rest.

Five freestanding villas sit on a ridge above the Mornington Peninsula, each looking out toward the bay through floor-to-ceiling glass with no one else in sight. This is a wellness resort where the villas are designed as a direct extension of Alba's thermal springs, all muted tones and native bushland pressing against the windows. It's the kind of place where the architecture does the work of telling you to slow down.

Half an hour from the Byron Bay scene, this three-pavilion retreat sits deep in the shadow of Mount Koonyum, where the rainforest does most of the decorating. The architecture earns its keep too, built from reclaimed metal and timber, with poured concrete floors softened by vintage rugs and contemporary art on the walls. There's a magnesium pool for when wilderness feels like enough of a commute. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Rooms here are engineered for the square footage the way a good carry-on is, nothing wasted, with super-king beds, wall windows over the waterfront, and fluffy robes for when you're not doing anything useful. This boutique hotel on the Newcastle harbour runs the same minimalist formula as its Canberra and Sydney siblings, but adds a gym and a lounge bar that will, should ambition fail you entirely, deliver snacks directly to your room.

Agapi is a neighborhood Greek restaurant on a boutique-lined stretch of King William Road, easy to spot by its black exterior. Inside, painted frescoes cover the walls, which seems fitting for a place built around dips, grilled octopus, and moussaka. The roasted lamb shoulder takes its time, so bring a group and book ahead. It's a sit-down dinner with a bottle of wine, not a quick souvlaki on your way somewhere else.

Anchovy Bandit is a casual pizza joint on Prospect Road where the menu also moonlights as a film festival, with a two-course "short film" and a four-course "Directors Cut" for people who'd rather not choose. Pies run from plain to king prawns and truffle prosciutto, there's a lobster pasta you have to order two days ahead, and the cocktails are good. It's a Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant, and the mood stays relaxed.

Chianti is a family-run Italian restaurant on Hutt Street that has been feeding Adelaide longer than most of its regulars have had opinions about pasta. The cooking sticks to regional classics and leaves the reinventing to other people, so expect rabbit pappardelle, a Tuscan half chicken, and panna cotta to finish. The Michelin Guide lists it as a Selected Restaurant, and the welcome is warm enough that nobody gets rushed.

Clover and Stone is a vineyard restaurant about half an hour outside Adelaide, with a terrace over the gardens and a renovated stone barn for when the weather turns. The chef cooks Korean food by way of French and Italian technique, so the gochujang shows up in places a Sunday-lunch crowd wouldn't expect. It's a Michelin Guide selected restaurant, which here mostly means someone will drive you home.

This is a family-run winery restaurant in McLaren Vale, so the wine list is the one place nobody has to argue about the pairing. A wood stove handles the cold months, and in summer vines creep across the ceiling like the room is trying to join the vineyard outside. Lunch leans on the kitchen garden, with à la carte on weekdays and a set menu on weekends. It holds a spot in the Michelin Guide as a Selected Restaurant.

Fugazzi is an Italian-American restaurant in central Adelaide that borrows heavily from New York, right down to the red walls, marble counters, and booths built for leaning in. The menu runs to handmade pasta, wood-grilled seafood and meat, and a tiramisu finished tableside, which turns dessert into a small stage production. It's lively and dressy enough for an occasion, and it holds a spot in the Michelin Guide as a Selected Restaurant.

Huami is a Chinese restaurant upstairs at the SkyCity casino, which is either a red flag or a plot twist, and the contemporary dining room says plot twist. The kitchen cooks regional dishes from across China, and a wood-fired duck oven sits in full view of the tables, so you can watch your dinner get ideas. Weekend dim sum comes with tea pairings. It holds a Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant listing.

Latteria is a Milanese-leaning Italian restaurant on a corner of Hutt Street, where the first order of business is an aperitivo and a snack, a porchetta bun or fried risotto, before anyone gets serious about dinner. The pasta is made in house, and the staff will steer you if you freeze. Everyone arrives well dressed, as though the negroni sbagliato came with a dress code. It's listed in the Michelin Guide as a Selected Restaurant.

The sign out front still says dry cleaner, a leftover from a previous tenant that has fooled more than a few walk-ins. Inside is a small, cozy Italian-leaning wine bar with counter seats, a scatter of bistro tables, and elbow room that's strictly theoretical, so you'll end up on a first-name basis with your neighbors. Focaccia and olive oil show up while you decide, pasta does most of the talking, and Michelin lists it as a Selected Restaurant.

A black building sits in the middle of the Mitolo vineyards, and the glass walls mean the vines get as much attention as the plates. This is a winery restaurant serving Italian food off wood and charcoal, so expect lamb skewers, wood-fired prawns, and warm bread with churned butter. The house wines are poured with everything, which is convenient, since the cellar door is basically the front yard. It's in the Michelin Guide as a Selected Restaurant.

This is a casual Texas-style barbecue joint in Port Adelaide, parked next to the lighthouse, which is not a sentence you expect to write about brisket. The menu stays short and meaty, with pulled pork, wings, and sides like collard greens and corn bread, all made in-house. The terrace runs year-round under heaters, so a cold South Australian evening is no excuse. The cocktails are stronger than the setting suggests.

A steakhouse tucked into the ranch house of a remote cattle station, where the cows are less a menu item than the neighbors. Dinner is a set five-course run through the station's wagyu, opened by a short briefing from the chef on how it all works. The open kitchen shares space with aging beef, cowhides, and framed steak knives. It's a Michelin Guide selected restaurant, so plan on a drive and a full evening.

A modern Vietnamese restaurant on Rundle Street, where the menu takes liberties and doesn't apologize for them. Pho shows up as dumplings, and dessert pours fish sauce into the butterscotch. The front terrace gets the best view of the street's nightly foot traffic, so you can eat grilled squid in chili butter while watching other people decide where to eat. It's a mid-priced, come-as-you-are sort of place with a Michelin Guide listing.

Pastel Wine Bar is a North Adelaide wine bar that took its name seriously, with pastel paintings on the walls and a room that's casual without looking like it didn't try. The menu wanders from Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean to South America, which is how a spanakopita spring roll ends up on the table. It handles a date or a loud group equally well, and it's usually busy either way.

A former general store and post office in Stirling now handles its mail in the form of pasta, which arrives in heaps big enough that most tables order one to split. It's a relaxed Adelaide Hills restaurant with a regional, Italian-leaning menu, and a husband-and-wife team who greet you like they've been expecting you. Expect good shoes, not good suits, and the Michelin Guide lists it as a Selected Restaurant.

Pearl is a casual seafood restaurant parked beside the Aldinga Beach Boat Ramp, so your lunch has a view of Gulf St Vincent and, occasionally, a trailer being reversed with great confidence. The menu sticks to South Australian waters, and the kitchen cooks it simply. Flip-flops and sunburn fit in fine. Michelin lists it as a Selected Restaurant, which is a lot of recognition for a place next to a boat ramp.

Penobscot skips the dining room entirely and seats ten people at a counter in the middle of the kitchen, tucked inside the Watervale Hotel in the Clare Valley. The menu is whatever came out of the farm down the road that morning, so there's no point asking what's good, it's all Tuesday's. Expect a tasting-menu price and a front-row view of the cooking, plus house-made farm-fruit mocktails if you're driving.

Press* Food and Wine is a stylish city restaurant near Light Square with a bistro's laid-back attitude and a bar that's doing most of the flirting. Window booths face the street, and the tables inside are intimate enough that you'll know your neighbor's order. The kitchen pairs European habits with local ingredients, so the menu can put kangaroo tartare and a mushroom pithiver in the same breath. There's a tasting menu if you'd like the chef to explain themselves.

Shōbōsho is a wood-fire izakaya on a Leigh Street block that never quite goes to sleep, all dim light, dark timber, and a long counter facing the open kitchen. Nearly everything gets a turn over the flames, including the leeks, which tells you how committed they are. There's sake to go with it and cocktails to start, and the staff are charming enough that ordering a second round feels like their idea.

Soi 38 is a Thai restaurant on Pirie Street named for a Bangkok street food strip, which is a bold move for a dining room done up almost entirely in white. Nobody here is eating off plastic stools, and the chef's years cooking in Thailand show up in regional dishes that stay faithful while allowing a little fun. It's a Michelin Guide Selected restaurant, and the curry list runs long enough to settle most arguments.

Sunset Food and Wine sits out on Kangaroo Island, where the menu reads like a thank-you note to the neighbors who grow, catch, and raise everything on it. Oysters, lamb, pork, and honey all come from within a short drive, which keeps the supply chain shorter than most restaurants' wine lists. It's a relaxed, sit-down dinner spot with a Michelin Guide listing and a view that makes the sunset part of the reservation.

Tarantino's is a moody, candlelit restaurant on the edge of Adelaide's East End, with the dim, leather-booth atmosphere of a New York steakhouse that took a wrong turn into South Australia. Nearly every small table faces the open kitchen and its wood-fired grill, so dinner comes with a view of the fire. Expect to spend real money, especially if the lobster pasta gets involved, and to be Michelin Guide Selected.

This is the dining room of a pub in the Adelaide Hills, with stone walls, white interiors and the faint air of a countryside cottage that has been to culinary school. Before you sit down, there's a walk-in cellar doubling as a wine shop, so you can pick your bottle like you own the place. The cooking leans French and Italian, with kangaroo showing up on the menu to remind you where you are. It's a Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant.

This fish-and-chips counter is bolted onto an actual seafood factory in Port Lincoln, which is about as short as a supply chain gets. You order at the window, grab a terrace seat, and choose from whatever the boats sorted into the fish case, with whiting and flathead among the options. Tempura prawns and Coffin Bay oysters sit on the menu too. It holds a spot in the Michelin Guide, which it wears the way you'd wear a name tag.

The Kitchen is a casino-adjacent steakhouse dressed as a railway station, right down to a kitchen laid out like a train, which feels like a lot of commitment to a bit. A big charcoal grill anchors the open kitchen and handles everything from carrots to Australian beef, and the tomahawk and lamb shoulder are built for sharing. It's a Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant, so wear something nicer than your commuter clothes.

This is a restaurant on a working sheep station in the Flinders Ranges, where the lamb on your plate grew up a short drive from your table. It's a casual outback dinner, so dress for dust and a long drive rather than a tasting menu. Tables vanish fast, and the Michelin Guide lists it. You can also arrange helicopter tours or stay the night, which is handy since the nearest town is not close.

Yakisan is a dress-up-for-it Japanese-leaning restaurant on O'Connell Street, where a jade marble counter fronts an open fire and a big oven, and a DJ is working somewhere behind the private booths. There's a sky deck for people who like to be seen from above, and a back bar for the ones who prefer to be seen later. Steak is the main event, and the dinner bill will tell you it's a night out. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant.

A single two-bedroom villa sitting in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, twenty minutes from Noosa, Casa Renoir does its best impression of a Southern Italian estate and largely gets away with it. The communal hub, La Plage, has a wood-fired kitchen, a bar, a lounge, and a natural swimming lagoon, which is an unusual sentence to write about inland Queensland. More villas are coming, but right now the whole property is essentially yours.

Olivia Newton-John co-founded this wellness resort in the Byron Bay hinterland, and the bush setting does most of the heavy lifting before you've even unpacked. Rooms, suites, and villas run quietly luxe, and the programming, daily yoga, spa treatments, and organic meals sourced with evident care, pulls guests out of them quickly enough. The kind of place where people arrive wound tight and leave speaking softly.

A Seventies motel in the Blue Mountains, reborn as a 46-room boutique hotel with Palm Springs as the mood board. Rooms still open directly to the outside, no corridors or lobby to navigate, and they run from a single king up to a two-bedroom suite with a spa bath. The on-site restaurant, Blaq, leans into the Blackheath surrounds, pulling ingredients from the property's own garden when the season allows.

Perched at the cliff's edge above the Jamison Valley with the Three Sisters looming next door, this country house hotel outside Katoomba earns its views the old-fashioned way: picture windows in nearly every room. The 85-room property feels considerably smaller and more personal than that number suggests, with a spa and pool setup that punches well above the hotel's size, plus a library and billiards room for those allergic to wellness.

Rammed-earth walls and Italian linen share a room at this four-chalet stay in the Blue Mountains, where the grounds were handed to conservationists before the builders got a look in. Wood-burning stoves, soaking tubs, stocked wine fridges, and champagne at check-in make the case for the interior, while over 80 native plant species have quietly returned outside. It's a small, considered retreat for people who like their isolation comfortable.

A federation-era timber home turned small guesthouse in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, where the Glasshouse Mountains make a rather dramatic backdrop to an otherwise quiet country town. Rooms lean boutique, atmosphere leans borrowed-someone's-house, and the magnesium pool is the kind of detail that sounds indulgent until you're actually in it. Maleny itself does most of the entertaining from there.

Cedar hot tubs on every private deck, even in the studios, give this rainforest retreat in the Sunshine Coast hinterland a strong case against the beach. Set in the green hills outside Maleny, Spicers Tamarind is a small resort where villas go further into the trees for extra quiet. An on-site cooking school and a Thai-inspired restaurant, The Tamarind, handle the evenings, and Maleny's cafes and breweries are a short drive for when you want to leave.

A Georgian mansion on the Derwent River, about half an hour from Hobart, converted into eight rooms by owners who stumbled across the near-derelict property on holiday and simply decided to save it. The rooms are calm and uncluttered, with river views throughout, a guest kitchenette for eating on your own schedule, and a mobile concierge that stays accessible without hovering. The kind of small, quietly serious hotel that makes a big boutique feel exhausting by comparison.

Two architecturally designed suites sit at one of the highest points on the Fleurieu Peninsula, an hour from Adelaide and, on the right morning, well inside the clouds. This luxury retreat keeps it small by design: one suite tucked into the hillside trees, one higher up with valley views. Both have floor-to-ceiling windows, stone bathtubs, and an outdoor bath beside the fire pit for anyone who enjoys soaking in the dark with a glass of something cold.

Catseye Pool Club, run by Josh and Julie Niland, is reason enough to linger at this design-forward resort on Hamilton Island. A local designer converted one of the island's original lodges into 59 rooms with balconies facing either gardens or the Coral Sea, with sculptural stonework and First Nations artwork throughout. Blackout blinds and trundle beds signal who the place is really built for, and the Michelin Guide has taken note.

A private lake, a working vineyard, and a wine cellar that takes the region's reputation seriously: Cape Lodge is a grand estate retreat in the Margaret River wine country, three hours south of Perth. The original rooms lean cozy; the newer suites run large and spare; and the Vineyard Residence comes with a helipad, in case you need reminding which tier you're in. The lakeside restaurant pulls from local seafood and Western Australian produce, and the Bentley is available if you'd like a tour.

A Neapolitan pizza spot on Little Bourke where the dough is properly leavened and the menu splits cleanly between red and white pies. The room is simple and the staff move fast, which suits the lunch crowd around here. Pasta and cannoli fill out the menu for anyone who needs convincing that pizza is enough. It ranked on the 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific list, for what that's worth to the skeptics at the table.

Coconut palms lean in at improbable angles over the beachfront at this apartment-style resort halfway up the Queensland coast from Cairns. Suites run one to three bedrooms, all with full kitchens and dedicated dining areas, so it reads more like borrowing a well-designed flat than checking into a hotel. Three pools, a spa, and a restaurant from MasterChef alum Nick Holloway fill the hours when the beach itself isn't enough.

Dark wood, mismatched velvet, and leather sofas in a muted-light room that invites you to arrive early and leave late. Black Pearl is a cocktail bar on Brunswick Street that most drinks people treat as the main reason to come to Fitzroy at all. The list is short and inventive, boutique beers cover the non-cocktail moods, and bar food handles the rest. Difford's Guide rates it five stars, which tells you where the serious drinkers end up.

A mezcal cocktail bar wedged into a Council Place garage so small it might have previously housed a single hatchback. Cantina OK is the opposite of Sydney's big-shoulder waterfront bars, the ones that eye your footwear suspiciously. Sandals, cowboy hats, and ball gowns all get waved through here, and the agave list runs deep enough that you'll stop pretending you know what you want and just ask.

The Art Deco fixtures cast a warm amber glow over off-white walls and chestnut wood, and the whole room reads like a 1950s New York neighbourhood joint that somehow landed in Carlton. Capitano is an Italian bar where the drinks are the point, though the pasta and pizza pull their weight too. Difford's Guide gives it five stars, which for a corner spot dressed this modestly is a mild plot twist.

The wood-fired oven greets you at the door, which sets the tone for this Italian restaurant in Moonee Ponds where the menu runs from pizza through pasta to proper secondi. The kitchen leans on imported Italian staples and takes the full spread seriously, pizza and antipasti alongside handmade pasta. It ranked 29th on the 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific list. A children's menu and genuine attention to dietary needs make it one of the more relaxed neighbourhood options around.

Buffalo mozzarella flown in from Battipaglia sits on the menu at this casual pizzeria off the Princess Highway in Tempe, a detail that tells you exactly how seriously the team takes sourcing. The dough skips the classic Neapolitan puff in favor of something from the Cilento coast, a little crisper and more compact. Fresh pasta and a short cheese selection round things out, and the room runs warm in the way that makes you linger longer than planned.

A sourdough pizza shop in a coastal Perth suburb, where the dough follows Neapolitan tradition using flour shipped from Italy and gets a long, slow fermentation that shows in the chew. The menu stretches beyond pizza to appetizers, pasta, and salads, and the dessert and coffee selection is taken seriously. Ranked on the 50 Top Pizza Asia-Pacific list, it draws a lively crowd that seems genuinely at ease with the staff.

The four-bedroom Beach House here puts you close enough to the Indian Ocean that "minimalist décor" starts to feel like a practical choice rather than an aesthetic one. A resort in Yallingup on the southwest coast, it sits inside the Margaret River wine region with clean, modern architecture that holds its own against the scenery. All accommodations, from one-bedroom apartments up, come with full kitchens, so you can actually cook between cellar doors.

Frozen margaritas for ten dollars in the Surry Hills sun is a strong opening argument. Tio's Cerveceria is a Mexican-leaning bar in the neighborhood's easy-going pocket, with an outdoor setup that earns its keep on a warm afternoon. The mezcal list runs deep, the Michelada is built with enough red pepper to qualify as a wellness decision, and the whole place has the loose, no-fuss energy of somewhere that has quietly figured out exactly what it wants to be.

A grand old mansion on a private estate in the Southern Highlands, Ardour Milton Park is a country house hotel built around the idea that doing less is the point. Rooms lean into soft tones, natural timber, and big windows opening onto manicured gardens and a fountain. The restaurant works European dishes through local produce, and the bar's fireplace earns its keep in cooler months. Kangaroos occasionally appear on the nearby trails, which is not something most hotels can promise.

Safari tents on timber platforms above the Jervis Bay bush, each one with an open-air bathroom and a freestanding tub under the sky. This tented camp keeps things deliberately low-tech, which is the point. The Gunyah lodge doubles as a treetop dining room with a deck wrapped in eucalyptus and paperbark trees. Wi-Fi exists there, if you absolutely must, but the camp clearly regards that as a character flaw it's politely tolerating.