The Best Places in Australia

Dozens of wooden chairs hang from the ceiling, which is either art installation or fire hazard depending on your mood. This compact specialty coffee shop in the CBD is an outpost of the Seven Seeds roastery, so the espresso is serious and the pace is brisk. It's the kind of place where nobody lingers too long, yet somehow everyone feels like a regular.

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.

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.

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.

A glass wall separates you from the roasting floor, so you can watch the hot-air roasters running while you drink what they just finished. This roastery cafe in a converted Collingwood brick warehouse pours consistent espresso blends alongside rotating single origins, and the sunlit courtyard fills fast on a good morning. The New Zealand brand has been around forever, but the Melbourne outpost feels like it belongs here completely.

A compact coffee shop on Little Collins Street that runs on the assumption that the people walking in have somewhere to be. This is the CBD outpost of Everyday Coffee, stripped down to a minimalist space built for fast, unfussy service. The batch brew moves quickly, the espresso blends are available to take home, and nobody lingers long enough to name the chairs.

The Little Bourke Street outpost of a Richmond roastery, this is a specialty coffee shop that strips everything back to the cup. The room is clean and minimal, which is less a design choice than a statement of intent: single-origin, seasonal beans get the counter space, not the furniture. Good for a pour-over between meetings, assuming you don't want anything on the menu to distract you from thinking about coffee.

A calm, minimalist specialty coffee shop tucked into Potts Point, where the design is spare enough that the coffee has nowhere to hide. Flat whites and pour-overs are the draw, pulled from carefully sourced beans that the team takes quietly seriously. The kind of place where people open a laptop and forget to leave, which is either a recommendation or a warning depending on your afternoon.

Six acres of country gardens slope down to Lake Daylesford, and the resort that grew from what was once a weekend restaurant has never quite shed that origin story. Studios, suites, and villas sit among the grounds, with a solar-heated infinity pool, hot tub, sauna, and spa rounding things out. Fine dining and local produce remain the throughline, four decades on.

Floor-to-ceiling glass walls face the Tasmanian coast, with a secluded beach at the bottom of the path and wetsuits in the cupboard if the water looks inviting. This is a self-catering modernist retreat, really a private three-bedroom house designed by local architect Craig Rosevear, sitting midway between Hobart and Launceston. The kitchen comes stocked with local provisions, and several good restaurants are a drive away. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

A giant stone fireplace anchors the main lodge while timber cabins fan out toward a beach so clear a pool would feel like an insult. This wilderness retreat on Tasmania's Freycinet Peninsula sits at the end of a long, deliberate drive, and the lodge leans into that: understated interiors, private terraces aimed at the bay, and tennis courts that most guests ignore in favor of just getting outside.

A hotel built into the Mitchelton Winery Estate on the Goulburn River, with rooms done in grey tones and warm timber that Australian studio Hecker Guthrie designed as a deliberate echo of the landscape outside. Balconies look over the river or the vines, the spa runs on plant-based treatments, and the outdoor infinity pool faces open country. The Muse Restaurant leans on local Goulburn Valley produce, though guests are welcome to skip the middleman and fish dinner straight from the river.

Black coffee only, full stop. Aunty Peg's is the roasting headquarters and tasting room for Proud Mary Coffee, tucked into a two-story Collingwood warehouse where the espresso bar doubles as a kind of classroom. Baristas walk you through pour-overs and microlots with the focused energy of sommeliers who've given up on casual drinkers. If you were planning to ask for oat milk, plan differently.

The roasting equipment isn't decorative here; this Brunswick East spot runs as a working roastery first, with a tasting bar tacked on for those who want to drink the results on the spot. Baristas at the counter are the kind who'll walk you through a seasonal single-origin without being asked. Batch brew, espresso, or a bag of freshly roasted beans to take home, the menu stays short because the focus doesn't wander.

A bright blue door on Drewery Lane marks this tiny specialty coffee shop, the kind of Melbourne laneway find that regulars prefer you not know about. The matcha lattes have their own following, the flat whites are carefully poured, and the sister pastry shop Bakemono Bakers sits just across the lane if willpower fails. Small enough that everyone inside seems to know something you don't.

A roastery-cafe in a converted warehouse on one of Brunswick's better streets, with the kind of concrete-and-timber interior that feels earned rather than decorated. The coffee program runs from house blends to rotating single-origin filters, so there's always a reason to ask what's on. Locals who know the neighborhood well tend to end up here, which is usually a decent sign.

Sixty thousand acres of South Australian outback and six rooms to share it with, which is the kind of ratio that makes the Flinders Ranges feel genuinely yours. Arkaba Homestead is an all-inclusive safari-style stay inside a private wildlife sanctuary, with the old stone homestead doing its antique-meets-contemporary thing while the team handles the drives, the guided walks, the cooking, and the South Australian wine.

Tented bungalows perch at the edge of Kakadu National Park, where the Mary River floodplain stretches far enough that you stop looking for the fence. Bamurru Plains is a wilderness lodge in the safari mold, Australian chapter, trading the Big Five for saltwater crocs and magpie geese. Wildlife excursions are the whole point, but the central lodge and communal table, stocked with local cooking and serious Australian wine, make coming back inside feel less like a compromise.

Tented camps, the argument goes, are what eco-lodges become once someone decides comfort shouldn't be optional. Near Binalong Bay on Tasmania's northeast coast, Bay of Fires Bush Retreat offers beautifully fitted safari-style tents alongside a bunk house and a king room for those who prefer walls. The outdoor draw is serious, with surfing, diving, and mountain biking close at hand, and the chef-owner who runs dinner came out of the local restaurant world.

The cattle still outnumber the guests by a considerable margin at this working Northern Territory station turned remote outback stay. Stone-walled rooms replace the tents you'd expect from a place this far off the grid, and activities range from a pool dip to a helicopter sweep over the bush. The off-grid life here is less performance than plain fact, which is precisely what makes it feel different from a resort playing dress-up.

Seven hundred thousand acres of Kimberley wilderness, and the adults-only Homestead is tucked inside all of it. This all-inclusive resort does the thinking for you: guided hikes, boat cruises, and nature drives fill the days, while evenings gather everyone around a communal table for seasonal Australian cooking and local wine. Rooms have the big windows to match the scenery, and private terraces for when you'd rather not share the view.

A working cattle station the size of a small country sits behind this remote all-inclusive lodge, about 100 miles northwest of Cairns. Accommodation runs from safari tents to two-bedroom pavilions, and the property is small enough that it never feels like a resort. Helicopter tours, river fishing, and sunset cocktails fill the days, and the night sky out here is the kind that makes you feel the universe has been withholding information.

The roasters share the floor with the cafe here, so the smell hits you before the door fully opens. Coffee Supreme's Abbotsford warehouse is a specialty coffee shop built around their own beans, with espresso blends alongside rotating single-origin filters. The red branding is hard to miss, the timber interior is easy to linger in, and the merch wall will test your self-control if you came in just for a flat white.

A converted warehouse on Westgarth Street where the roastery, coffee lab, and cafe all share the same bright, plant-filled floor, so you can watch the beans move from machine to cup while waiting for brunch. It's a full-production specialty coffee shop that takes itself seriously without making you feel underdressed. The seasonal food menu holds its own, and the cold brew options get inventive in the way only Melbourne can pull off without irony.

The pink-and-rouge facade with its pearlescent sign looks like it belongs to a different era, which is fitting because Sean's has been around forever under various names. A casual, artistically eclectic restaurant on Campbell Parade, it does inventive home-style cooking with warm hospitality and a wide-angle view of Bondi Beach that makes you forget whatever you ordered. The menu is the kind that feels approachable right up until you realize how good it is.

Around 40 types of chai brew in bubbling pots inside this tiny, caravan-like shop on Pennant Hills Road, and the cardamom-and-clove perfume hits you before you reach the door. The menu draws on the owner's Kenyan upbringing, where cooks pushed the spice levels harder than tradition usually allows. Many blends are named after people he knows, and each one is said to reflect its namesake's personality, which is either charming or a little terrifying depending on your namesake.

The sandwiches are named after family members at this snug North African cafe on Crown Street, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe. The menu wanders from Morocco to Algeria to Tunisia, with fried eggs jolted with cumin and tchouktchouka, a Tunisian cousin of shakshuka built on tomatoes and a 21-spice ras el hanout. A genuinely family-run room, warm enough that you feel the invitation.

Six types of papaya salad is already an argument, and Chat Thai's menu runs to around 200 dishes from there. This long-running Thai restaurant near Circular Quay sources holy basil and garlic from the family farm, which shows up in the larb, the curries, and the stir-fries in ways that supermarket herbs simply don't. The location draws Opera House crowds and ferry commuters alike, but the kitchen isn't coasting on the view.

The charcoal smoke rolling out toward Granville Station has been redirecting commuters for decades. This is a Lebanese charcoal chicken shop, the original location of a Sydney institution, and the garlic sauce has generated enough devotion to spawn interstate outposts and genuinely long queues. Chicken, chips, and that sauce are the move, though the hot chips roll has its own following. Simple, cash-friendly, and absolutely not somewhere you walk past without stopping.

The milk for the gelato comes from Messina's own Jersey herd on a Victorian farm, which is either charming or excessive depending on how seriously you take ice cream. This is the Marrickville flagship of Sydney's cult gelato chain, and it goes well beyond scoops: frozen tiramisu tarts, a chocolate cabinet full of artisan riffs on Iced VoVos and Wagon Wheels, and rotating specials with names like Robert Brownie Jr. sit alongside the pistachio praline regulars swear by.

Mazesoba is ramen's broth-free cousin, and Iiko brought the style to Sydney before anyone else bothered. The noodles arrive loaded with umami-heavy toppings, and bottles of chili oil and kombu vinegar sit on the table so you can keep adjusting until the bowl is exactly yours. The co-owner studied noodle-making in Osaka, and it shows in the depth of a dish that doesn't need soup to feel complete. A noodle shop worth squeezing into on Hay Street.

Jonathan Barthelmess, whose Apollo has been packing rooms in Sydney for years, opened this Greek dining room in Redfern's Wunderlich Lane with the same gift for making a space feel like somewhere everyone already knows. The spanakopita makes the rounds at nearly every table, and the prasopita, a flaky spiral with four melted cheeses, is what your neighbor ordered first. Spanakopita and charred octopus are the things to know.

Spring rolls that pull weekend queues to a Vietnamese restaurant tucked into Cabramatta are worth understanding. The crunch comes from a style of rice paper that's genuinely hard to source, producing a shell that's thick, glossy, and audibly crisp in a way most versions never manage. The kitchen traces its lineage back to the neighborhood's landmark Thanh Binh, and that pedigree shows in the cooking. Food writer Andrew Levins has called the spring rolls the finest in the country.

The milk buns here come stuffed with American cheddar, egg, and potato hash, finished with a dill-heavy riff on Big Mac sauce, which tells you exactly where this bread shoppe's head is at. Hoagies on house-baked ciabatta, a four-cheese toastie loaded with mushrooms and smoked salt, and a halal-friendly meat selection keep the queue moving through Jubilee Avenue. Carbs as a serious vocation, dressed as a casual sandwich stop.

The Soulmate Bae roll comes stuffed with house-made sambal, herb mayo, and Red Leicester because one co-owner's grandmother kept it in the fridge, and that's the kind of detail that tells you everything. This Newtown brunch spot runs on toasties and morning rolls with just enough left-field thinking to keep the menu interesting. Staff move at a clip, and the takeaway line stays honest.

Shunde, a Cantonese city with UNESCO gastronomy status, doesn't get much representation in Sydney, which is what makes this Hurstville restaurant worth knowing. The menu leans into dishes you won't find on every dim sum trolley, including fried milk, which arrives either savory with fish cakes and roe or sweet with mango, and fried milk rolls that land somewhere between a spring roll and a cannoli.

The lamington, Australia's beloved chocolate-coconut sponge, gets a full reimagining at this specialty cake shop in Newtown. The original comes with raspberry jam and carries a quietly personal backstory, but the fairy bread version, popcorn buttercream and all, is the one that stops people mid-sentence. Yuzu meringue and black sesame round out a menu that treats a childhood staple with enough seriousness to make that feel completely reasonable.

The wild yeasts here come from flowers collected across New South Wales, which the brewer describes as something like collecting dreams. Wildflower is a craft brewery and taproom in Marrickville's industrial brewing corridor, where the beers taste deeply local because they are, down to the plum varietals. The grilled Jersey cheese from a nearby dairy is reason enough to eat, and the collaborators propping up the menu read like a who's who of Sydney's food scene.

The dough here starts with single-heritage emmer wheat grown up north and ferments for three days before it sees fire, which is a longer backstory than most pizzas get. Westwood is a pizza shop in Newtown where the team sources everything, salami, vegetables, cheese, honey, and the timber in the oven, from within New South Wales. It reads like a provenance exercise but eats like a neighbourhood pizza night.

The awarma and egg pizza here tells a small family history: confit lamb preserved through Lebanese winters, combined with a daughter's preference for sunny-side-up eggs, folded into a man'oushe. This old-school Lebanese flatbread house in Guildford has been around forever, and the menu has grown to include things like a haloumi spring roll wrapped in deep-fried phyllo with za'atar, which is either an identity crisis or a perfectly reasonable Tuesday lunch.

A basement steakhouse beneath Sydney's CBD, The Gidley feels like a very good secret: dark timber, velvet banquettes, polished brass, and low light that flatters everyone equally. Dry-aged Australian beef goes over an ironbark and charcoal grill with the kind of restraint that lets the meat do the talking. The wine list leans into serious Australian regions alongside European classics. It ranks among the World's 101 Best Steak Restaurants.

The glass-walled dry-ageing chambers aren't decoration; they're the thesis statement. Victor Churchill is a steakhouse-meets-butcher-shop in Armadale where premium Australian beef is aged, cut, and grilled with the kind of restraint that lets the meat do the talking. The amber-lit interior runs to polished timber and bronze detailing, and it lands on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list. The wine programme skews deep and serious.

Bistecca alla Fiorentina, one cut, one fire, no negotiating the menu. This Tuscan steakhouse tucked along Dalley Street runs on dry-aged Australian beef over ironbark and charcoal, in a brick-ceilinged room lit mostly by the glow of the grill. It landed on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, and the stripped-back conviction of the place makes that easy to believe. The pace slows the moment you sit down, which is either the point or the warning, depending on your evening.

Marble counters, brass fittings, and a wood-fired grill visible from the dining room set the tone on Flinders Lane. This is an Italian-leaning steakhouse where Australian beef, aged both wet and dry, meets open fire with a lot of restraint and very little fuss. The room manages glamorous without stiff, and the service follows the same instinct. It landed on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which tells you the kitchen is serious about the meat programme.

The open grill at the center of the room sets the agenda here: this is a flame-led steakhouse inside a Western Sydney club, and Dany Karam runs it with the kind of seriousness that earns a spot on the World's 101 Best Steak Restaurants list. The kitchen dry-ages beef with patience, has access to whole-carcass Wagyu, and doesn't pretend the grill is the only idea. The copper-and-marble room seats six meters high but still reads warm.

A basement steakhouse on Little Collins Street, lit by the glow of a custom-built ironbark-fired smoker and a grill that does most of the talking. The kitchen dry- and wet-ages Australian cuts before they meet the fire, so the flavour has been building long before service starts. It ranked 81st on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which feels about right for a room that's industrial without trying too hard about it.

Marble surfaces, pale timber, and enough natural light to make Brisbane's notorious heat feel intentional set the tone at this modern Australian steakhouse inside The Calile Hotel. The wood-fired grill handles both dry- and wet-aged beef with restraint, while oysters and seafood sit alongside the meat as equals rather than afterthoughts. It ranked 77th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, which gives you a sense of the room's ambitions.

Sandstone walls from The Rocks surround this wood-fired steakhouse, which lands at number 93 on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list. Australian beef is aged wet and dry before meeting the grill, where the kitchen uses flame for depth rather than theatre. The room runs to timber, leather, and warm lighting, serious enough to feel like an occasion without making you straighten your back. The kind of place that suits regulars and visitors equally well.

The roasters are right there, visible from the espresso bar, which gives this sprawling industrial warehouse on Graham Street a refreshingly honest energy. Vertue is a coffee roaster that also happens to welcome you in, so the single origins and house blends you're drinking were likely roasted a few metres away. A low-key spot favoured by people with laptops and a serious interest in what's in their cup.