The Financial Review's Australia's 100 Restaurants awards again have underlined how the national obsession with food is producing a home-grown foodie culture unimaginable 40 years ago. Restaurants and their chefs are among the great disrupters and innovators of the Australian economy, riding the waves of both tourism and a two-thirds growth in household incomes since the early 1990s. Amid big players such the Rockpool Dining Group, Chef of the Year Josh Niland of Saint Peter in Sydney proves that having an idea and striking out can be successful. Only 29 years old, this intense young chef is changing the way fish is served.

Designed to celebrate excellence and professionalism in dining, the Top 100 is unique in Australia in being voted by the industry itself. The restaurants are those that people in the business would themselves most like to eat at. And for the second year in a row, that is Brae in rural Victoria.