The Best Places in Australia

South of France cooking in a Darling Harbour hotel, with wine racks lining the walls and a menu that leans on local produce shaped into something unmistakably French. The kitchen uses coal and char alongside classical technique, so there's smoke and richness alongside the bright, coastal flavors you'd expect. A polished, unhurried kind of dinner, the sort where you dress up a little and nobody feels self-conscious about it. The Australian Good Food Guide awards it two Chef Hats.

Fire anchors the kitchen at this hotel fine dining room in Melbourne's CBD, where the menu moves through Australian land and sea with the restraint of a place that doesn't need to shout. The produce comes from named farmers and fishermen around the country, and the cooking lets that lineage do the work. An Australian Good Food Guide Two Hat restaurant, with a wine list that takes provenance as seriously as the food does.

A 28-seat fine dining room on Given Terrace where the chef's Sardinian roots quietly run the kitchen, pulling contemporary Italian cooking away from white-tablecloth formality toward something warmer. Arancini shaped like mushrooms give you a sense of the playfulness on the plate. The footpath spills over into aperitivo territory when the weather cooperates. A two-hat entry in the Australian Good Food Guide for a room this small is a lot of weight for one terrace house to carry.

White-clothed tables and fresh native flowers set the tone at this modern Australian restaurant tucked into the shops along Peregian Beach's main strip. The menu moves through creative, produce-led cooking, and on warm afternoons the alfresco tables spill out toward the square. The Australian Good Food Guide gives it two Chef Hats, which tells you roughly what to expect from the kitchen's ambitions. Long lunches are the move here.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame Balmoral Beach from every seat, which makes the nautical theme feel earned rather than decorative. This is a fine-dining restaurant on the Sydney Harbour foreshore, all French blue linen and an open kitchen that spills into a lounge furnished with Moroccan rugs. The chef came up through Sixpenny, and the seasonal menu leans into the harbour setting without hammering the point. A 350-bottle wine list and two Good Food Guide Chef Hats.

The wrap-around green leather banquettes and a festoon-lit terrace set the tone at this contemporary European bistro in the NSW hinterland, where two sisters run the room and the kitchen with equal ease. The cooking leans into coastal produce, and the Australian Good Food Guide has handed out two Chef Hats. Murwillumbah is not where most people expect to find a restaurant at this pitch, which is half the point.

The name comes from "bombora," an Aboriginal word for the shallow reef formations visible from the deck at low tide, which sets the tone for everything that follows. This is Hamilton Island's fine dining room, sitting inside the sculptural Yacht Club and leaning hard into native ingredients and seasonal regional produce. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it Two Chef Hats, and the view gives the kitchen stiff competition.

Lunch among the vines at this winery restaurant means a seasonal menu that pulls almost everything from the kitchen garden on the property, paired with estate pours chosen to match. You can sit outside under umbrellas with rows of vines in view, or stay inside where it's warmer and quieter. The food is a step beyond winery-cafe standard, which the two Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide would suggest. The kitchen leans modern Australian with a light hand.

The dessert buffet alone has its own dedicated zone, which tells you something about priorities here. Citrique is a Modern Australian restaurant inside the JW Marriott on the Gold Coast, built around interactive dining stations that drift from fresh sushi and seafood through Asian curries and satays to European plates. The Australian Good Food Guide gives it Two Chef Hats, and the à la carte menu leans into local sourcing.

Fine dining inside a grand Victorian house on the edge of the Jamison Valley, with leadlight windows, crystal chandeliers, and two open fireplaces doing their best to distract you from the escarpment view outside. The menu runs modern Australian, leaning on local produce and the kind of technique that earns Darleys two Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide. It's a special-occasion room that knows it, and dresses accordingly.

Fine dining in a suburb you'd never expect it, inside a room dressed in French Renaissance furniture, antique paintings, and crystal decanters that look borrowed from a minor aristocrat's estate sale. Deer Duck Bistro runs a degustation menu threading Modern Australian cooking through European technique, and the Australian Good Food Guide awarded it Two Chef Hats. The candles and old silver do a lot of work, but the kitchen keeps up.

A sleek steakhouse on one of Brisbane's better-dressed streets, where the whole point is the cut and the kitchen knows it. The room runs warm and the service is polished without being stiff, which makes it equally good for a long lunch with clients or a dinner where you're trying to impress someone. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it two Chef Hats, which tracks for a place this serious about the beef.

Fino is a sit-down winery restaurant in the old bottling hall of the Seppeltsfield estate, a heritage-listed room with enough light that your lunch photos will look better than you do. The short sharing menu leans on whatever the surrounding farms are sending over, with a wood-fired grill doing the heavy lifting. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and two Good Food Guide hats, and lunch here tends to run long.

Flower Drum has been a Melbourne institution long enough that regulars book the same table year after year and the staff already know what they want. It's a formal Cantonese restaurant tucked into a lane off Chinatown, white-tablecloth serious, where the roast duck is carved tableside and the service runs like the dining room has something to prove. The Australian Good Food Guide awards it two Chef Hats, and the room's quiet confidence suggests it has never needed to mention that.

Charcoal grilling and tempura in the same omakase menu sounds like a contradiction until you sit at the counter and watch the chef make it feel inevitable. Haco is a compact Japanese fine dining room in the Sydney CBD, built around a single tasting progression you watch unfold in front of you. The name means theatre in Japanese, which the room leans into without apology. It holds two Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide.

Modern British cooking in tropical Far North Queensland sounds like a concept that shouldn't work, yet here it is, pulling two Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hats. The menu leans on classical technique while letting the surrounding reef-and-rainforest produce do the talking. It's a proper sit-down restaurant, unhurried and polished, the kind where the beverage list gets as much attention as the kitchen. Port Douglas's special-occasion default for anyone who knows the town.

Set in a heritage winery homestead on the northern outskirts of Perth, Harry's is a French restaurant run by two brothers whose parents' artwork lines the walls. The chef came up under Michel Roux Snr at the Waterside Inn, and classical technique is the whole point here: this is the kind of room where you slow down, and the pacing makes that easy. The Australian Good Food Guide awards it Two Chef Hats.

Set on a vast cattle station an hour from Brisbane, this fine dining room draws almost everything on the plate from its own market garden, orchard, beehives, and free-range farm, or from producers just down the road. Fire, smoke, coal pits, and a fermentation room full of pickled jars do the heavy lifting in the kitchen. The Australian Good Food Guide awards it Two Chef Hats, and the menu shifts whenever the land says so.

Waterfront tables face the Noosa River directly, which makes lingering over a long lunch feel less like indulgence and more like good sense. Lanai is a Modern Australian restaurant built around shareable plates, sustainably sourced seafood, and native ingredients, with a mood that's polished enough to feel special but loose enough that nobody's rushing you. It holds two Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide, and the sunset view does a fair amount of the heavy lifting.

Deep navy walls, brushed brass fittings, and velvet curtains set the register before anyone opens a menu: this is a fine dining room that takes itself seriously in the best way a Gold Coast restaurant can. Little Truffle is the kind of Modern Australian spot where you choose between à la carte and a four-course menu, linger over duck and house-made pasta, and leave later than planned. The Australian Good Food Guide gave it Two Chef Hats.

A one-off sculptural chandelier, locally made and named for light, anchors the room at this all-day European restaurant on North Terrace. The Art Nouveau bones give it genuine atmosphere, and the kitchen leans on regional producers to do the talking. It runs from morning coffee through cocktails at dusk, so the crowd shifts considerably depending on when you arrive. The Australian Good Food Guide has given it two Chef Hats.

The rammed-earth dining room sits among Hunter Valley vines with the Brokenback Range filling the windows, which does most of the work before the food arrives. Margan is a farm-to-table restaurant on a working vineyard and olive grove where the kitchen garden and Suffolk lambs are quite literally next door. The Australian Good Food Guide has given it two Chef Hats. Bring a tolerance for long lunches and an empty boot for wine.

A boutique family-run Italian restaurant tucked among the eucalypts of the NSW South Coast, well away from anything you'd call a dining district. The chef's roots are in Piedmont, but his cooking has picked up detours through Singapore and the local coastal produce along the way. Three courses, a thoughtful wine list leaning organic and biodynamic, and a setting that earns its two Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hats without anyone needing to remind you.

The French wine list runs deep enough that you could spend the whole meal just reading it, which sets the tone for a French fine dining room that takes the classics seriously. The chef trained under Michelin kitchens, and the cooking shows it, seasonal and precise without tipping into the self-conscious. Bowen Hills is a quiet address for somewhere this polished, but regulars seem to prefer it that way.

Wide timber decks look out over the estate vines in the Adelaide Hills, and on a clear day the valley stretches far enough to justify a second glass. This vineyard restaurant pairs a monthly changing seasonal menu with wines grown on the property, and the open fireplace makes the rustic interior a reasonable argument for winter visits too. The Australian Good Food Guide handed it Two Chef Hats.

Yes, it's inside a Lexus showroom, and no, that's not the strangest part. Omotenashi is a ten-seat kaiseki restaurant in the heart of Hobart's CBD where multi-course Japanese tradition plays out in a room that smells faintly of new car ambition. The set menu holds the wheel, and the kitchen leans on Tasmanian produce to do its Japanese artistry. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it two Chef Hats.

Rolling Adelaide Hills framing the windows sets the mood before the food arrives. Ondeen is a Modern Australian dining room in Verdun, a short drive from Hahndorf, built around the idea that the region itself is the ingredient, with local produce and an all-Adelaide Hills wine list doing most of the talking. The spaces flex for private events and celebrations, and the Two Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide suggest the kitchen is keeping pace with the view.

Seasonal produce and regional producers set the agenda at this relaxed fine-dining room on Jardine Street in Kingston. The kitchen leans into what's good right now, from wagyu to winter truffles, and the wine list pulls in both local bottles and museum selections worth lingering over. It holds two Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide. The kind of place that handles a birthday and a midweek dinner with equal ease, which is harder than it sounds.

Whole-leaf oolong and black teas sourced from Kenya and Taiwan are the anchor here, not a backdrop to something else. Oxi Tea Room is a high tea spot in Carlton where the tea is treated with the seriousness usually reserved for wine, and the housemade desserts lean into native Australian ingredients, lemon myrtle, green ants, and all. It holds two Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide, which tracks for a room that takes the kettle this seriously.

Tasting menus run from three to nine courses here, plant-based or protein-led, so you can calibrate how serious an evening you want. Perspective is an intimate modern Australian fine-diner on Brunswick Street in Fortitude Valley, the kind of place where the kitchen leans hard into seasonal and local produce, and the room is styled to match that ambition. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it Two Chef Hats. Private dining seats up to fourteen.

Pale wood, glossy tiles, and floor-to-ceiling glass set the scene at this modern Japanese restaurant on Bunda Street. The kitchen runs a robata grill alongside composed plates that lean heavily on yuzu, miso, and Japanese seasoning traditions applied to local produce. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it Two Chef Hats. Canberra's dining scene gets underestimated often enough that a room this sharp-looking still catches people off guard.

The seafood on your plate was swimming off this island's shore a few hours earlier, which sets the tone for the whole experience. Samphire is the fine-dining restaurant at this private island retreat on the Eyre Peninsula, where Mediterranean flavors meet foraged coastal ingredients in a room of rattan chairs and polished concrete. The Australian Good Food Guide awards it two Chef Hats, and it earns them quietly, without fuss.

Named after a lavender town north of Marseille, Sault sits on a working lavender farm outside Daylesford, overlooking its own lake and the Wombat State Forest. It's a modern Australian fine-dining room where the kitchen draws from onsite gardens and local producers, changing the menu each season. The two Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide suggest the cooking is doing more than trading on the view, which, it should be said, is doing quite a lot of the work.

A plant-only Sichuan restaurant in an industrial Collingwood space, Shu has been quietly dismantling the assumption that vegan dining means polite and beige. The kitchen leans into the bold, numbing heat of southwest Chinese cooking, and the ten-course degustation does the convincing. There's also a cocktail bar tucked inside, which helps explain the crowd's relaxed commitment to staying a while. The Australian Good Food Guide gives it two Chef Hats.

Station Road is a dressy, grown-up restaurant on the first floor of Festival Tower, with a polished marble bar, a wine cellar on proud display, and terrace seating for anyone who likes their lunch with a view of Adelaide. The kitchen plays it French, leaning on local produce, and finishes with a Paris-Brest and a cheese trolley, so skipping dessert here would be a bold act of self-restraint. It's listed in the Michelin Guide.

Neon signs, Japanese-style murals, and wooden furniture set the tone at this share-plates Asian restaurant on Weyba Road, where the room feels like a group project between four very opinionated friends. The cooking pulls across Southeast and East Asia without apology, landing somewhere between playful and serious, which is roughly the same place the cocktail list sits. An Australian Good Food Guide Two Chef Hat spot that doesn't feel like one, in the best, most accidental way.

Sixteen seats, a cave-dark room of blackened steel and raw timber, and a Korean omakase menu that changes with the seasons. SUUM is the kind of quiet, focused dining room where you arrive, accept a glass of housemade makgeolli with a snack, and hand the evening over to the kitchen. The two Chef Hat tasting menu runs a dozen or so courses, rooted in Korean tradition and clearly comfortable straying from it.

Vineyard views through the dining room windows mean you're watching what's on your plate grow a few hundred metres away. This is a formal, sit-down restaurant on the Mornington Peninsula doing European-leaning seasonal cooking with a two Chef Hat nod from the Australian Good Food Guide. The wine list leans heavily into the estate's own bottles, which is either charming or convenient depending on how you feel about that sort of thing.

White tablecloths and rattan chairs look out over the Sunshine Coast Hinterland from the terrace of this fine dining room tucked into the hills above Montville. The kitchen leans French, drawing on local produce to run a seasonally shifting menu, and the pacing is deliberately unhurried. The Australian Good Food Guide has given it two Chef Hats, and the drive up the escarpment is half the point.

A stone fireplace anchors the dining room while the Great Dividing Range fills the windows, which is a reasonable way to set expectations for a meal. This is a fine dining restaurant inside a mountain lodge, running a contemporary Australian menu that leans on regional produce and native flavours. The Australian Good Food Guide has given it Two Chef Hats. At over 1,100 metres up, the terrace sunsets arrive uninvited and stay too long.

An open timber pavilion set in the rainforest above Maleny, with the kitchen running Thai-rooted contemporary Asian cuisine and a degustation menu for anyone who wants the full tour. The food trades in the kind of sweet, sour, and spicy balancing act that looks simple and isn't. Two Chef Hats from the Australian Good Food Guide. The retreat around it is lovely, but the restaurant is the reason to book.

A restored heritage house on the Tweed River, with pressed tin ceilings, palm fans, and a verandah that looks straight out at Wollumbin. This is a plantation-style bistro running a proper Modern Australian menu, the kind of place where lunch can quietly become afternoon. The Australian Good Food Guide gave it two Chef Hats. Come on a weekend when the lawn bar is open and the cane fields are green, and the pacing feels less like a meal than a small argument for slowing down.