The Best Places to Eat and Stay in Australia

Coral Sea views from the balcony set the mood at this casual Japanese restaurant on the ground floor of Townsville's Ardo Hotel, where the kitchen takes its cues from Tokyo's brighter, louder side. The menu moves through sushi, sashimi, and tempura, with a cocktail list that leans on sake and yuzu to match. Relaxed enough for a weeknight, polished enough that you won't feel underdressed if you made an effort.

A restored Queenslander on a quiet New Farm street, this all-day spot shifts from a sunlit verandah breakfast to a wine bar with fairy lights in the courtyard once the evening cools. Modern Australian share plates and a thoughtfully chosen wine list fill the night hours, while mornings bring specialty coffee and brunch cocktails that suggest the kitchen doesn't take the AM too seriously. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

A white-tablecloth restaurant on the edge of Lake Burley Griffin, with an open fireplace and the kind of parkland views that make the city feel very far away. The menu changes with the seasons and leans toward local produce, the sort of place where the lamb actually has a postcode. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat, and bookings are essential, which the waterfront setting makes easy to understand.

Bi-fold windows frame a sweep of Terrigal Beach from the dining room, and the kitchen treats that view as a challenge rather than a crutch. This is a fine dining room built around Central Coast producers: local honey, native herbs, sustainable seafood from people the team actually knows by name. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat. Sydneysiders come down for the weekend and rarely book just once.

A converted old schoolhouse on a quiet road outside Byron, The Hut is a lunch spot that does Mediterranean food the way a long weekend should feel. Whitewashed walls, polished floors, and garden light filtering through big windows set a mood that's part coastal shack, part somewhere you'd actually eat well. The menu moves through Spanish, Greek, and Italian territory without a lot of fuss, and the Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

This is a winery restaurant on a sprawling Adelaide Hills estate, where the tasting menus are built around the vineyard's own bottles and the glass walls do a decent impression of a very expensive postcard. Expect a long, unhurried lunch that you'll plan your whole day around, and a table of people pretending to know what "provenance" means. It has an Australian Good Food Guide One Chef Hat and a Michelin Guide listing.

Open-air dining room perched at the edge of Hamilton Island, where the Coral Sea fills every window and the Whitsundays do most of the decorating. The Long Pavilion runs breakfast through dinner, Modern Australian menu in hand, moving from a tropical morning spread to sunset plates of kangaroo tartare and bay lobster while the light changes colour outside. A One Chef Hat pick from the Australian Good Food Guide, and a room that knows it has a view to live up to.

The Gold Coast Hinterland's forested ridgeline is the backdrop here, and the kitchen leans into that setting hard, pulling produce from nearby farms and the forest floor for a Modern Australian menu that sits somewhere between relaxed and formally ambitious. Think Wagyu, bay lobster, and foraged greens treated with quiet seriousness. The room reads like a farmhouse that tidied up for guests. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat.

The floor-to-ceiling windows frame Megalong Valley so dramatically it almost upstages the food. Set inside the historic Hydro Majestic Hotel, The Wintergarden is a European dinner restaurant that also does high tea, surrounded by ornate fireplaces and furnishings that lean hard into grand old mountain resort. The one Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide confirms the kitchen is doing something more than scenery work.

Red gum from the Bendigo region does the real work here, burning in the wood grill and oven that give this refined steakhouse its whole reason for being. The menu runs wagyu, dry-aged rib eye, and premium grass-fed cuts, backed by a bar stocked with 28 wines by the glass and a seasonal cocktail list. An Australian Good Food Guide One Chef Hat. Dress up a little; the room expects it.

Thelma is a little white house in the Adelaide Hills that has the decor of someone's very tidy aunt, small paintings and cookbooks included. The kitchen turns out simple, French-leaning Modern Australian cooking built around local markets, and the wine list stays within the Hills too. It's open only Friday through Sunday, so plan around it. It holds a Michelin Guide selection and a Good Food Guide chef hat.

Floor-to-ceiling windows look out over Tamar Valley vineyards at this wood-fired Modern Australian restaurant beside Velo Wines, north of Launceston. The menu shifts constantly around what's grown nearby, including produce bartered from neighbors up the road, and the kitchen leans on fermentation and pickling to stretch the seasons. It holds an Australian Good Food Guide Hat. Lunch is the main event, relaxed and pastoral, with the smell of the fire doing half the talking.

A country pub that's been around forever in the Gippsland flatlands, Tinamba Hotel runs from a proper dining room and conservatory through to a casual bar and verandah, so you can dress it up or down depending on the mood. The kitchen leans hard into local produce, which in this corner of Victoria means excellent meat and dairy country. The Australian Good Food Guide has given it a Chef Hat, which in a town this size feels like a quiet act of defiance.

A Surry Hills spot where Australian and Asian cooking get folded into each other in ways that feel less like fusion and more like a genuine point of view. The menu shifts familiar territory into something harder to categorize, which is either exciting or unsettling depending on your mood. The room is small enough that the kitchen's curiosity feels personal. It holds a Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide.

The open kitchen sends smoke and char into a sleek dining room of soft light and dark wood on Miller Street in North Sydney. Toki is a fusion bistro and bar where the menu leans toward big-format sharing, think tomahawk steaks and beef tartare dressed with tendon crisps and caviar. The cocktail bar pulls its own weight. The Australian Good Food Guide awarded it a Chef Hat.

A renovated corner store in the heritage-listed village of Millthorpe, with white-clothed tables, polished wood floors, and lighting turned low enough that everyone looks like they're up to something. Tonic is a set-menu dinner spot running a five-course chef's choice format, so you're along for the ride, which in this case includes local truffles and regional wine pairings. The Australian Good Food Guide awards it a Chef Hat.

Inside Maffco Brewery and Distillery, TUCKA is a farm-to-fork restaurant that takes Gippsland's seasonal produce seriously enough to keep the menu in constant motion. The kitchen leans hard into what the region grows and raises, so what you order depends entirely on when you show up, which is more or less the point. An Australian Good Food Guide One Chef Hat restaurant out in the Gippsland countryside, which is its own kind of argument.

A Pisco Sour is the obvious opening move at this Peruvian restaurant inside the Pan Pacific Perth, and the room, all grey matte walls, blond timber, and terracotta tile, gives you somewhere calm to drink it. The menu moves through ceviche, grilled octopus, and wood-kissed meat dishes, tracing the coasts and highlands without turning it into a geography lesson. One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide.

A contemporary Indian restaurant tucked into a resort-like setting on the edge of the Northern Beaches, Urban Tadka moves through regional Indian cooking with a modern hand. The room runs from casual dinners to full celebration mode, with lounge areas and a proper bar alongside the dining spaces. It holds a One Chef Hat from the Australian Good Food Guide, and the menu leans into sharing, which suits the warm, unhurried pace of the place.

The restaurant takes its name from the Japanese word for a Western chef's knife, which tells you something about where this place sits, one foot in Japanese tradition, the other in the cooking-obsessed Sydney dining scene. It's a considered, sit-down Japanese restaurant in sleepy Clovelly, and the kitchen leans hard on local produce while keeping the cooking precise and unfussy. The kind of room where people are there to eat, not to be seen.

Parked right on Lake Burley Griffin with the water close enough that you feel slightly guilty checking your phone, Water's Edge is a polished Modern Australian restaurant where seasonal produce gets a quiet nudge from French technique and Mediterranean habit. The room reads special-occasion, though regulars treat it as a comfortable Wednesday. An Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat acknowledges the kitchen's ambitions, which are considerable for a Canberra lakeside address.

The beer garden wraps around a wood oven and an Argentine-style grill, which tells you something about the ambitions of this old Clare Valley pub. Much of the produce comes from the hotel's own organic farm down the road, and the kitchen runs everything from a casual a la carte to a six-course degustation. The Australian Good Food Guide has given it a Chef Hat, and the setting, a lovingly restored country hotel, makes it easy to stay longer than planned.

Fine dining inside a working winery estate, with the manicured gardens of The Llawn rolling out beyond the windows. The team pairs a modern Australian tasting menu and à la carte with the estate's own wines, which is a convenient arrangement when the wines are this good. The Swan Valley setting does a lot of the heavy lifting, and the kitchen seems content to match it rather than compete, leaning on seasonal produce and clean technique.

Soft lighting, warm tones, and a menu that leans hard into classic French bistro cooking occupy a quiet stretch of Arthur Street in Fortitude Valley. Winnifred's is the kind of place where a long lunch with a decent Burgundy seems not just reasonable but necessary. Steaks get proper sauces, seafood is treated without fuss, and the room manages to feel polished without making you nervous about your shoes.

Glossy black finishes and low lighting set the mood at this contemporary Japanese restaurant inside Surfers Paradise's QT Hotel. The menu runs the izakaya staples: sashimi, sushi, and kushiyaki from the grill, all built for sharing. A focused list of Japanese whisky, sake, and cocktails keeps pace with the food. The Gold Coast isn't the first place you'd expect a moody Tokyo-ish dining room, which is sort of the point.

Marble bench tops and pendant lighting set the tone at this Modern Australian restaurant on Port Douglas's main corner, where the menu leans into local seafood and Far North Queensland produce. It reads as the kind of place where you could go on a date or a group dinner and neither party would feel shortchanged. The Australian Good Food Guide has given it a Chef Hat.

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.

Reclaimed wood, potted plants (an actual rarity in hotels), and creamy natural tones set the mood at this Docklands property on the Yarra, where the whole design brief seems to be "what if a hotel felt like a forest floor." 1 Hotel's sustainability-first ethos runs through everything: low-intervention Australian wines, local Victorian producers across the four dining and drinking spots, and a Bamford spa with pool, sauna, and steam room. It holds a Michelin Key.

Turrets, towers, and rough stone walls in the Adelaide Hills: Thorngrove Manor is a five-suite boutique hotel that commits fully to the European castle fantasy rather than the Australian lodge. Antique four-posters, tapestries, carved ceilings, and the odd German piano fill rooms that are all different from one another. Meals come to your suite or, by arrangement, to a candlelit dining room kept intentionally private. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

Fifty-six suites in a 19-story tower, each fitted with crystal chandeliers, Bose sound systems, and Jo Loves toiletries, which is a lot of effort for somewhere people assume they'll spend most of their time at the casino downstairs. This is a boutique luxury hotel that earns its quiet by keeping the room count low. The rooftop infinity pool looks out over the Gold Coast skyline, and Frette linens and complimentary valet are standard issue throughout.

Sixty-three stone villas spread across 161 clifftop acres on Kéa, an island most people can't place on a map but Athenians have kept to themselves for years. The resort sits above the Aegean with infinity pools, living-roof villas, and a helipad for guests who find the speedboat too casual. A speakeasy tucked somewhere on the property and a fine-wine bar mean you won't run out of excuses to stay. Forbes Four Star.

A chandelier made of 10,000 globes hangs over a wine cellar encased in floor-to-ceiling glass, which tells you everything about the register this Mornington Peninsula vineyard hotel is playing in. The rooms lean into the surreal with Japanese soaking tubs, heated floors, and views straight into the vines. It holds two Michelin Keys. The mythical horned jackrabbit lends the place its name, and the designers clearly took the brief personally.

Built around 12th-century farmhouse ruins, this Six Senses resort sits above the Paro National Museum at 8,800 feet, with the valley spreading out in three directions from nearly every room. The 16 suites and scatter of villas lean into Himalayan craft, stone floors, timber, and vegetable-dyed rugs, while the semi-underground spa adds an indoor heated pool and a pine-trail meditation walk. Tiger's Nest is a short drive; so is the airport. Forbes Four Star.

The kangaroos that hop past your window aren't a marketing promise; they're just Tuesday. This eco-lodge sits inside Taronga Zoo Sydney, so the native animal sanctuary outside is literally part of the grounds, and every stay includes two days of zoo admission and a guided tour. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame either the wildlife habitat or a postcard shot of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A saltwater lagoon with 300-plus species of fish is an unusual thing to find in a hotel lobby area, yet here it is, doing its job as a conversation piece for Surfers Paradise families. This Gold Coast resort stacks the deck: multiple pools, a six-room spa, teppanyaki and seafood buffet dining, and the long white beach just outside. Multi-generational groups tend to check in and promptly lose track of time.

Twenty-four white-sand beaches and no one on most of them: that's the pitch for this remote luxury resort on the Great Barrier Reef, a Michelin 3 Keys property that takes commitment to reach and none whatsoever once you're there. Villas lean into the landscape with bleached timber and open layouts, and the resort runs on a notably lock-free, schedule-free philosophy. Morning dives, long seafood lunches, empty beaches in the afternoon.

Two historic buildings share a postcode and a renovation: a sandstone pile from the 1800s and a 1940s Art Deco building, now stitched together into one of Hobart's grander hotels. The Tasman, a Luxury Collection Hotel, holds the Michelin Guide's one Key. Rooms run luxurious and the public spaces are generous, with an Italian restaurant, a lounge, and a craft cocktail bar named Mary Mary doing their bit for the cause.

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.

The subterranean pool, lit by lanterns and bookable by the hour for private swims, tells you something about the ambition here. The Interlude is a boutique hotel built inside Melbourne's former Pentridge Prison, where vaulted red-brick ceilings and bluestone corridors remain, but walls came down to create suites spanning four or five cells each. Fires burn in the old jail yard. It holds a Michelin Key.

Eight safari-lodge suites tucked into the Blue Mountains, about an hour from Sydney, where the name comes from the Zulu word for "healer" and the design follows through on the promise. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys. Suites range from canvas-walled rooms with Philippe Starck tubs to a two-level Chief's Suite, and an infinity pool hangs over the forested gorge. Hiking trails, spa treatments, and a small organic restaurant fill the rest of the day.

The sandstone bones of a former General Post Office, complete with grand columns and arched windows, now frame one of Sydney's more atmospheric hotels. Rooms split between the Italian Renaissance-style heritage wing and a modern tower, where the decor stays deliberately understated so the skyline can do the talking. The Bar handles afternoon tea and evening cocktails; The Place serves modern Australian and Southeast Asian food amid the original stonework.

A 31-room boutique hotel tucked into the city center, where the rooms split into two distinct moods: dark Japanese-inflected spaces with black floorboards and loft ceilings, or pale blonde-wood calm for the anxious traveler. Bulgari in the stone bathrooms, Bose systems as standard, and hotel guests quietly bypass the queue for the Establishment bar below, reportedly the longest in Sydney. Not a pool in sight, but the beds are generous enough to make you forget.

A shiny silver ball motif threads through the whole property, turning up in the lobby ceiling, the fruit basket, and, if you've booked the right penthouse, an actual in-room pinball machine. This CBD hotel runs on apartment logic: open-plan rooms, full kitchens in the bigger suites, free minibars, and bold local art on the walls. Spa people will need to look elsewhere, but everyone else gets a place that feels genuinely lived-in rather than merely occupied.

The Art Deco façade on Bourke Street is the opening argument, and the hotel mostly follows through. Mid-century modernism carries into the rooms, where the light fixtures alone justify a moment of appreciation. The rooftop pool deck is where everyone ends up at dusk, heated water and cocktails making a persuasive case for staying put. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

The elevators crack jokes here, which either sets the tone or warns you off entirely. QT Melbourne is a design hotel inside a 1930s cinema, with neon sculptures, 6,000 books on a single wall, and rooms that go unexpectedly quiet: concrete, slate, timber, leather. Corner rooms put the bathtub against floor-to-ceiling windows above the city. Downstairs, Pascale Bar & Grill does wood-fired Euro bistro cooking; the rooftop pours serious gin over unobstructed Melbourne skyline.

The lobby's floral installations take their cue from Versailles, which sets the tone for this grand CBD hotel near Martin Place and Hyde Park. All 436 rooms across 17 floors have been refreshed in warm neutrals and charcoal paneling, with mid-century lighting and timber accents keeping things from tipping into stuffy. A private Club lounge handles the wood-paneled, moody-sophistication brief for those who want it.

Two heritage buildings, an Art Deco pub and a Victorian-era brewery HQ, joined by enclosing the alleyway between them: that's the physical logic of this boutique hotel in Chippendale, just south of the CBD. The architects kept the industrial patina and layered in genuinely considered luxury. The Clare Bar runs a high-design pub vibe downstairs, and the rooftop handles cocktails and the kind of al fresco evening that makes Sydney feel like it's showing off.

A CBD hotel that quietly borrows from both Japan and Scandinavia, with pale timber, matte-black trim, and rooms kept refreshingly uncluttered. Corner "Big Rooms" wrap floor-to-ceiling glass around the city skyline. The rooftop splits between an indoor lounge centered on a custom fireplace and a planted timber deck above the street. Downstairs the bar pours Australian wines and makes a committed orange espresso martini, which is a sentence you'll either love or scroll past.

The swooping central staircase makes an argument the moment you walk in. This Collins Street hotel leans into Art Deco grandeur without turning it into a theme park, the bones are historical but the overall feel is pared-down and contemporary. Rooms have Westin's Heavenly Beds and oversized bathtubs, a spa and fitness center are on hand, and City Square fills the windows. Flinders Street Station is close enough that you can actually use the city on foot.

Concrete walls, lacquered red accents, and lobby installations by local artists signal that this Fitzroy hotel is trying to be something other than a hotel. The StandardX is the group's first offshoot property, and it wears the neighborhood's warehouse-bar energy without much effort. The rooftop pours cocktails over Melbourne skyline views, and Bang downstairs runs seasonal plates with local wine. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Locals call it the Lizzy, which tells you something about how the neighborhood has taken to it. This boutique hotel on the Surry Hills edge was built from cross-laminated timber and decorated by a Sydney artist with floral wallpaper, vintage mirrors, and Australian art. Rooms are compact but considered, and the rooftop lounge looks out over the low-rise streets. The ground-floor courtyard fills with the kind of people who blur the line between a laptop and a long lunch.

The golden ceiling above the indoor pool sets the tone for W Melbourne, a luxury hotel occupying Collins Arch, a skyscraper above Flinders Lane. Rooms go heavy on bold color and futuristic styling, which either thrills you or has you sleeping with your eye mask on. Five restaurants and bars are on hand, covering all-day Italian, Japanese omakase, and a cocktail bar that runs DJ nights. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

A former jam factory on Hobart's waterfront, now a hotel and working gallery hung with hundreds of works by Tasmanian artists. Exposed brick, vaulted timber ceilings, and old factory equipment coexist with all-glass bathrooms and individually designed suites, some with sandstone walls or harbor terraces. The IXL Long Bar backs onto a wall of original tin cans. It holds a Michelin Key.

Treehouse-style rooms hang over the Mossman River where the Daintree Rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef, and the staff handle everything from guided reef dives to rainforest picnics before you've finished your coffee. Silky Oaks is an ecolodge built for people who want the wilderness but aren't interested in roughing it. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys. Bring good walking shoes and a slightly loose schedule, because the team here will fill it.

Full-kitchen, open-plan apartments in a Surry Hills terrace, selected by the Michelin Guide, aimed squarely at the visitor who'd rather cook a late dinner than flag down a bellhop. The neighborhood does a lot of the heavy lifting: some of Sydney's sharpest restaurants and bars are within a short walk, the city center is close enough, and the Harbour Bridge photo-op crowd is largely pointed elsewhere.