The 100 Best Places in Australia

A former Department of Education building, all golden Edwardian sandstone and ornate bones, now holds one of Sydney's more considered luxury hotels. The restoration layers Aboriginal art and bush-scented spa products into what could easily have been a generic grand-hotel renovation. The 20-metre pool sits where an art gallery once stood, which feels about right. Ranked 12th on the World's 50 Best Hotels list, and holding a Michelin Key.

Josh Niland built a reputation on treating fish the way other chefs treat beef, using every part of it, which at Saint Peter means ice cream made with fish eyes instead of eggs. It's a modern Australian restaurant inside a handsome old pub in Paddington, and it ranked 66th on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2025. The cooking is committed enough that Niland's books on the subject won James Beard Awards, which tells you this is not a fish-and-chips situation.

Turquoise water meeting white sand at the edge of nowhere, Wharton Beach sits in the Duke of Orleans Bay area of Western Australia's southern coast, remote enough that even on a flawless summer day you may have the whole stretch to yourself. Dolphins work the break while surfers do the same. It ranked third on the World's 50 Best Beaches list in 2026, which should tell you something about the drive.

A drift snorkel off a desert beach where the current does the work, carrying you along the Ningaloo Reef while fish go about their day around you. Turquoise Bay sits inside Cape Range National Park with no development in sight, scrubland meeting white sand meeting that genuinely improbable water color. Ranked fifteenth on the World's 50 Best Beaches list, it draws fewer visitors than the name deserves, which is the whole point of coming this far.

A 30-metre pool with its name spelled out in gold tiles tells you everything about what The Calile is going for. This Brisbane hotel leans into pastel-and-cabana luxury, Richards & Spence's design channeling modernist Miami through a distinctly barefoot-Australian lens. Six restaurants, open-air corridors, cork floors designed for bare feet, and staff in linen uniforms who treat every request with cheerful "no worries" ease. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

The Hill of Grace vineyard was planted by a Silesian settler over 150 years ago, named for the Lutheran church peering down at its twisted old vines. This Eden Valley winery has been in the same family for six generations, and tastings are personally hosted by them, portraits of ancestors watching from the walls. Henschke holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, which feels about right for a place still farming the ground its great-great-grandparents cleared.

Floor-to-ceiling windows on the new rooftop suites frame the Opera House close enough to feel slightly unfair to every other hotel in Sydney. This is a luxury hotel right on the harbour in the Rocks, practically under the Bridge, and it has the Michelin One Key and Forbes Four Star to show for a recent renovation that replaced a dated nineties interior with something considerably more composed. Butlers are plentiful, marble baths are standard, and the staff manage to be both professional and genuinely warm.

A Georgian facade on a quiet Kent Street side street, a short walk from the Rocks but removed enough to feel genuinely calm. The Langham is a luxury hotel where the televisions hide inside armoires and slippers wait in cedar wardrobes, which sets the tone. Rooms run to marble bathrooms, mahogany, and deep fabrics in a Regency register. A Michelin Key and Forbes Four Star property that leans boutique in feel despite the full-scale amenities.

Most of the 531 rooms look out over Sydney Harbour, which sets the tone for a large, full-service hotel that takes its location in The Rocks seriously. The spa and outdoor pool give you somewhere to decompress before a night in the restaurant, and the concierge team is the kind that actually follows through. The Michelin Guide lists it with one Key.

Perched at the top of Collins Street overlooking St. Patrick's Cathedral, this luxury hotel is the kind of Melbourne landmark that many locals somehow can't place, which keeps the grand split-level lobby pleasantly uncrowded. Rooms run oversized, mixing Art Deco bones with Japanese-style sliding panels and Italian marble bathrooms. A 25-meter edgeless pool hides on an upper floor, and the suites come with fireplaces or terraces that feel almost satirically generous.

Rooms start on floor 65, which means the Dandenong Ranges and Port Phillip Bay are your default wallpaper at this luxury hotel in the Melbourne CBD. The interiors, designed by Melbourne firm Bar Studio, mix airy elegance with First Nations and local art so it doesn't feel like every other Ritz-Carlton on earth. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A series of restored 19th-century state government buildings, all soaring arches and white columns, makes for an unlikely but very convincing luxury hotel. The 48 rooms are cool, pale, and quiet, with heated stone bathroom floors, freestanding oval tubs, and blackout curtains run by remote. There's a rooftop restaurant, a spa, and a cocktail bar. Perth is a long way from anywhere, which is precisely when a hotel this considered earns its keep. It holds a Michelin Key and a Forbes Four Star.

The marble lobby sets the tone: soaring ceilings, a black-and-red palette, and a sense that someone thought carefully about every surface. This 171-room luxury hotel in Pyrmont sits inside The Star resort complex, which means five restaurants, a casino, and a cocktail bar are all within a short wander if you never feel like facing the city. The harbor views are spectacular, and the central business district is walkable. A Forbes Four Star property.

Open-fire Middle Eastern cooking in the Sydney CBD, where ironbark wood and charcoal from the Blue Mountains do the structural work rather than playing atmosphere. The kitchen pulls from Levantine and North African tradition, including medieval Arabic manuscripts, and the debt shows in the layering of spice rather than any museum-piece earnestness. It landed at number 14 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, though it behaves nothing like a steakhouse.

The sourdough starter here has been alive longer than the restaurant, which tells you something about the kitchen's relationship with patience. Sixpenny is a fine dining destination in a quiet inner-west suburb, where the menu leans on fermentation the way other places lean on butter. The mead vinegar custard with strawberry has been on since 2016 and shows no signs of leaving. Four chef hats from the Australian Good Food Guide, and bookings to match.

The sails of the Opera House aren't just backdrop here, they're roof. Bennelong is a multi-level modern Australian restaurant with a casual bar on one end and a formal dining room with harbor views on the other, so you can calibrate your ambition and your wallet accordingly. The kitchen runs seasonal Australian produce through deconstructed comfort classics, and the wine cellar is stocked to match the occasion. The setting does a lot of the heavy lifting, but the food keeps pace.

Potts Point's fully vegan fine dining room went plant-only before the rest of the industry caught up, which is either admirable timing or a very long bet that paid off. The chef behind it has spent years making vegetables do things vegetables don't usually do at this price point, and the kitchen earns its three chef hats from the Australian Good Food Guide without leaning on novelty. Book ahead; the room is small and the cooking has a following.

Neil Perry's wood-fired grill restaurant in Double Bay sits at number two on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which is about as specific an endorsement as the universe offers. The open kitchen keeps the focus on dry-aged beef and whatever came off a boat that morning, and the room follows the same logic: nothing is there to impress you, which is exactly why it does. Australian producers run the whole show, pasture to coast.

The floor-to-ceiling windows on the harbor-facing rooms put you at eye level with the top arc of the Harbour Bridge, which is one way to wake up. This luxury hotel in the Rocks sits close enough to the Opera House to feel like the center of Sydney, and the 36th-floor bar earns its press. Downstairs there's an honest pub with a terrace for a pint in the sun, which suggests a certain self-awareness. The spa, pool, and marble baths do the rest.

Fire is the organizing principle at this wood-grill restaurant in Fortitude Valley, not a talking point. The kitchen runs beef, seafood, and vegetables through the same charcoal logic, building depth without burying the ingredient. It's spread across three levels of a heritage building, from a main dining room to a wine bar to a terrace, and the whole thing moves with a calm, unhurried rhythm. Agnes holds a spot on the World's 101 Best Steak Restaurants list.

Every morning the menu is written from scratch based on what came in and how the fire is burning, because Firedoor runs on Australian hardwoods alone, no gas, no electricity. Lennox Hastie's Surry Hills restaurant is a serious, sit-down affair where the open kitchen keeps the work visible and the point is restraint, not theatre. It sits at number eleven on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which tells you something about the aged ribeye.

A wood-fired kitchen with a short menu and no apologies for either, Ester is a casual Italian-leaning restaurant in Chippendale where the off-duty chef crowd fills the room most nights. The fit-out is minimal and the mood deliberately unhurried, which gives the cooking space to make its point. Locally sourced ingredients carry most of the weight, and the team lets them.

A wagyu-focused fine dining room in South Yarra where the menu is essentially a graduate seminar on breed, marbling, and provenance. Australian and Japanese A5 cuts are aged in-house and cooked over a hibachi grill, served simply enough that the beef does the arguing. The room is warm and understated, the sommelier knows when to stop talking, and the service hits that rare register of polished without stiff. Ranked 29th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.

Thirty-five floors above Darling Harbour, most of the 590 rooms position a deep soaking tub flush against floor-to-ceiling glass, which is either a design statement or a dare. This is a large-scale luxury hotel where the rooftop infinity pool has a Mediterranean bar with striped umbrellas beside it, the ground floor runs a Champagne Bar with over 30 French pours, and the harbor promenade puts the Opera House and Harbour Bridge within a short walk.

A pink London taxi idles outside the entrance, which tells you most of what you need to know about The Langham Melbourne's approach to subtlety. This luxury hotel sits along the Yarra in Southbank, close enough to the Arts District and the famous laneways to feel central. Chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling flower arrangements fill the lobby, rooms come with marble soaking tubs, and the Club Lounge serves evening drinks on a schedule precise enough to set your watch by.

Two circular windows stare out from the red-brick facade like the building is watching you back. Hyde Melbourne Place is a 16-story hotel above Flinders Lane where the rooms are individually styled, suites open onto city-facing patios, and the lobby runs video installations the way other lobbies run cable news. Burnt orange, deep green, and velvet blue throughout. The rooftop draws the after-work crowd, and a penthouse that looks borrowed from a film set tops it all off. It holds a Michelin Key.

The open hearth in the middle of the room isn't décor; it's the kitchen's organizing principle, and everything on the menu follows that logic. This is a fire-led modern Australian restaurant in Norwood where wood smoke finds its way into vegetables and seafood as readily as into the dry-aged beef and Wagyu the place is known for. Jake Kellie, who came up at Burnt Ends, runs the hearth with an ease that keeps it from feeling like a stunt. Ranked 16th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.

The sandstone arcades of an 1851 Treasury Building form the bones of this landmark Sydney hotel, with 509 rooms stacked in a modern tower alongside it. Window seats frame views that run from the Royal Botanic Garden to the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, with harbour-facing rooms getting the better end of that argument. Byredo bath products, locally sourced minibars, and a rooftop bar 32 floors up round out a stay that puts Circular Quay a five-minute walk away.

Finnish chef Pasi Petänen runs this modern bistro and wine bar on King Street, where the cooking roams freely across borders without making a fuss about it. The long moody bar is well-stocked, the wooden tables fill with a mixed local crowd, and the menu moves between fermented things, excellent pasta, and good bread in a way that feels loose but considered. A Discovery pick from The 50.

Cumin-spiced lamb skewers on a barbecue stove at Chinatown Night Markets were the whole operation once. Now Firepop is a permanent Modern Australian restaurant on Enmore Road, where those same skewers sit alongside dishes that treat waste-minimizing as a creative constraint rather than a virtue to announce. The buttermilk panna cotta with pickled strawberries and South Australian olive oil has become a reason people come back. One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide.

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.

An old industrial building in Surry Hills, close to the CBD, converted with enough retained patina that the brick walls do the decorating for you. The Ace Hotel Sydney holds a Michelin Key, and rooms come with vintage wool blankets and retro styling, with the occasional turntable or acoustic guitar thrown in. The lobby bar, rooftop restaurant, and ground-floor café mean you barely need to leave, which is probably the point.

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.

A two-floor Cantonese restaurant that seats 240 people without feeling like an airport terminal, which is some feat. Raw brick walls hung with portraits of 1930s Shanghai women set the mood, and the menu runs to 80-odd dishes roaming across Southern China. It's loud, it's handsome, and the kitchen genuinely manages sour, sweet, umami, and spice all at once rather than just promising to.

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.

Every room comes with a balcony or terrace, which feels almost reckless for a Sydney hotel at this price point. The EVE is a boutique hotel on the edge of Redfern and Surry Hills, right on Wunderlich Lane, where the cafés and bars run late. Velvet banquettes and terrazzo inside, a rooftop pool and Mexican restaurant up top, and Bar Julius already pulling locals downstairs. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Raw plaster walls, hand-thrown ceramics, and aged timber floors set a quietly considered scene in this upscale tasting menu restaurant on High Street. Clinton McIver, formerly of Vue de Monde, builds long menus around texture and geography as much as flavor. The Sensory Menu is the full journey; a shorter lunch version exists for the commitment-averse. The kind of room where the lighting is obviously not an afterthought.

The farm came first, and the menu follows whatever it produces. Brae is a fine dining destination on a rural back road outside Birregurra, where the chef Dan Hunter, formerly of Mugaritz, runs an organic property with an olive grove and beehives and builds tasting menus around it. Six suites mean you can sleep off the whole endeavor. The kind of place that makes the drive feel like part of the plan.

A small Japanese restaurant in the spa-country town of Daylesford, Kadota runs kaiseki-style set menus built around whatever the surrounding region is producing right now. The team applies traditional technique to local seasonal ingredients with the kind of quiet discipline that doesn't need to announce itself. The Australian Good Food Guide awards it four chef hats. Book well ahead; this is not a walk-in situation.

Perched on the Maxwell Winery estate with vineyard views rolling out to the Fleurieu Peninsula, this fine dining restaurant runs a multi-course tasting menu built around South Australian produce, matched to wines from the cellar below. The chef brought a Michelin-trained European technique to McLaren Vale, and the combination of stacked stone walls, polished timber, and floor-to-ceiling glass keeps the setting from feeling too serious about itself.

Twelve seats at a glossy wooden counter, and every one of them faces Koichi Minamishima like front row at a recital. This is an omakase sushi restaurant in a Richmond backstreet that has no interest in announcing itself. The chef trained through Japan's rigid kitchen hierarchy before bringing his shokunin philosophy, that relentless pursuit of craft, south. The room is quiet and focused in the way that tends to make people lower their voices without being asked.

The dining room sits inside the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, which means fifty-plus acres of garden are essentially the mood lighting. This is a tasting-menu restaurant where the kitchen, led by Jamie Musgrave, builds each course around native ingredients and seasonal botanicals foraged or sourced from what's growing nearby. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it four Chef Hats. Dress accordingly and clear the evening.

Floor 55 of the Rialto Towers, with views stretching from the Docklands to the Dandenongs, and the interior lined in kangaroo leather and local stone. Vue de Monde is a fine dining tasting menu restaurant where the French technique that built its reputation has given way to something more distinctly Australian: macadamia, kelp, marron, Tasmanian mountain pepper. The room is theatrical enough that you'll want to dress for it.

Glass walls frame the estate vines at this winery restaurant in the Margaret River region, where the kitchen works in Modern Australian and the wine list draws straight from the property. The room leans formal enough for a celebration but never stiff, and the service knows the cellar cold. Australian Good Food Guide Four Chef Hats. Book ahead, dress up a little, and clear the afternoon.

Floor-to-ceiling glass hovers over mallee scrub on Kangaroo Island's southwest coast, which is about as remote as luxury gets in Australia. This 25-room coastal lodge runs on a fully inclusive model, open bar and gourmet meals included, so the main decision each morning is whether to join a sea lion tour or simply watch a kangaroo wander past from the sunken lounge. The spa has the same view, and reportedly so does the wildlife. Holds a Michelin 2 Keys and appears on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

Perched on Razorback Road in the Adelaide Hills, Anvers Wines pairs its estate wines with a full regional dining room built around the same philosophy: everything comes from here. The menu leans Modern Australian, shaped by a chef who treats local produce as both ingredient and argument. The Australian Good Food Guide has awarded three Chef Hats. It's the kind of lunch where the wine list is short because everything on it was made outside the window.

Ben Shewry's fine-dining room in a quiet Ripponlea street is the kind of place where a spoonful of native honey arrives as a course and somehow that feels completely logical. The degustation menu moves through ingredients most menus have never heard of, leaning hard into Australian native produce and the kind of sourcing that borders on obsessive. It holds three chef hats from the Australian Good Food Guide. Clear your evening and your card.

You reach this fine dining room by boat, which sets the tone before you've seen a menu. Perched on Calabash Point above the Hawkesbury, Berowra Waters Inn has been doing degustation with serious intent for longer than most of its guests have been alive. The chef's modern Australian cooking leans into native and coastal ingredients, and the water views do exactly what the water views always do here. An old-school institution, held to a high standard by its own long reputation.

The dining room looks out over the Piccadilly Valley from a grand old Adelaide Hills homestead, and the kitchen leans into that view with a degustation menu built almost entirely around South Australian produce. This is fine dining with a regional fixation, so expect multiple courses, expert wine pairings, and the kind of unhurried pacing that assumes you have nowhere to be. The Australian Good Food Guide gave it three Chef Hats.

Fire does the heavy lifting at this fine dining room inside the Ritz-Carlton, where the kitchen runs on embers and smoke rather than the usual brigade of burners. The menu tracks Western Australian seasons closely, pulling from producers scattered between the Kimberley and the Great Southern. Elizabeth Quay shimmers outside the windows, which the room knows and uses well. Three Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide.

Stone walls and timber beams meet a sleek bar stocked with the estate's own wines, which sets the tone for what follows. Hentley Farm is a fine dining destination in the Barossa where the menu is a surprise each visit, built around foraged, caught, and garden-grown ingredients from the property and its surrounds. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it Three Chef Hats. No printed menu to fuss over, just whatever the estate offers up that day.

Sea urchin mousse arrives before flambéed rock lobster, which tells you most of what you need to know about Laura. It's a fine dining destination on the Mornington Peninsula, set among a vineyard and sculpture park with Western Port in the near distance. The menu takes its cues from the surrounding landscape, the wine list goes everywhere, and the service is the kind that makes a long lunch feel like the only reasonable use of a day. Three Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide.

Floor-to-ceiling windows keep the vineyard in the frame while you eat, which is either very clever or a little on the nose, depending on your tolerance for wine country theater. LVN is a fine-dining tasting menu restaurant on the Bird in Hand estate in the Adelaide Hills, earning three Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide. The kitchen pulls produce from the Hills, Finniss, and Tasmania, running it through a menu that doesn't announce itself too loudly.

The vegetables on your plate were growing on the farm outside the window a very short while ago. Megalong is a fine-dining restaurant in the Blue Mountains, two hours from Sydney, where the kitchen draws almost entirely from the on-site gardens and surrounding valley. Polished wood floors, bifold doors, pendant lighting, and the kind of natural light that makes everyone look good. It holds three Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide.

Fine dining that occasionally serves fried chicken and doughnuts without any apparent shame. Nel runs a rotating 11-course degustation in a moody CBD room of exposed brick and open kitchen, where the theme changes entirely and regulars come back to see what the kitchen has cooked up next. The format is unmistakably tasting-menu serious; the attitude is something else. Three Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide.

Moored at D'Albora Marinas with water views in every direction, this is a fine-dining Italian seafood restaurant where the cocktail and gelato bar sits centre stage like it owns the room. The menu skips meat entirely, leaning into sustainable seafood prepared with enough technique to keep things interesting without taking itself too seriously. A Three Chef Hat winner from the Australian Good Food Guide, it draws a crowd that dresses up slightly but still orders dessert without guilt.

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.

A former mental asylum in the Derwent Valley, now filled with natural light and the smell of wood smoke, turns out to be exactly the right setting for a restaurant this serious about Tasmanian produce. The team behind Australia's best-known cookery school runs the kitchen, leaning on fermentation, pickling, and open-fire cooking, while keeping the plates spare enough that a raw tomato with anchovy sauce can hold its own.