• Victoria's best restaurants celebrated at The Age Good Food Guide Awards

If there are 10 key places you check out from The Age Good Food Guide 2023 this summer, make it these ones. From unexpected Parisian chic hidden in the 'burbs to casual offshoots of fine-diners, this list represents the most exciting and happening spots around Victoria, selected by Good Food's senior reviewing panel.

Auterra

Clinton McIver and his team have taken the food, wine and service smarts honed at fine-dining restaurant Amaru and refashioned them for their convivial and classy bar across the road.

There's no mistaking the refinement here but it's balanced by a cutlery-free menu of accomplished snacks and a wine list that's rich and broad but also cheeky and joyful.

Whether you're tucked inside or enjoying the courtyard, there are no bad choices here.

1160 High Street, Armadale, auterrawinebar.com.au

Bar Savarin

The charm of this bright and airy spot is heightened because the location is so unexpected. Tucked between a self-storage facility and a nondescript office building in Cheltenham, Bar Savarin looks more like it belongs on a European boardwalk than amid this boxy cityscape.

Displaying all the charisma of a casual modern Parisian eatery, the room matches chef Hugh Sanderson's modern French cooking, which shines across a menu of mostly snacks and share plates, but he nails the more substantial dishes, too.

132 Keys Road, Cheltenham, 03 7038 0018

Figlia

The idea that the crew from beloved CBD pasta bar Tipo 00 might repeat the trick, only with pizza, is a delicious prospect. At Figlia, they've gone even further, making a style of pizza as good as any of the Napoli-style pizzas around, but with the maximalism and fun of a great Australian pie.

With a large horseshoe bar, industrial lines and art deco pendant lights, this corner restaurant is a looker, too.

331 Lygon Street, Brunswick East, figlia.com.au

Jeow

​The Richmond shopfront that housed Anchovy has turned fabulously Laotian. But Jeow isn't so much a Laotian restaurant as a Laotian-inspired Australian restaurant, which gives it the freedom to be exactly what it wants to be.

And what it wants to be is a neighbourhood spot, somewhere you might come every week for chef Thi Le's inventiveness and cooking prowess, backed by a warmth created by regulars and newbies alike.

338 Bridge Road, Richmond, jeow.net.au

March

Say hello to the cocktail and wine bar that's the easygoing sibling to Ides, Peter Gunn's hushed, exacting Collingwood restaurant. Despite the casual label, it still transmits a feeling of specialness.

The wide marble bar, slate-grey walls and muted lighting make the small Smith Street shopfront one of the sexiest rooms around, the perfect place to start an evening with a well-made martini.

Don't skip the food, though: mainly smart and full-flavoured snacks plus a couple of dishes that might constitute a meal.

90 Smith Street, Collingwood, marchmelbourne.com.au

Parcs

Windsor Hotel proprietor Adi Halim, having already gifted the city Sunda and Aru, hits it out of the park again with Parcs.

Demonstrating a knack for talent spotting, Halim has installed Dennis Yong, a young chef with a flair for fermentation and a mission to reduce food waste.

In less witty or skilled hands, the focus on repurposing ingredients otherwise headed for the bin might get a little earnest.

But Yong's passion for flavour runs as deep as his commitment to the environment. Being an eco-warrior never tasted so good.

198 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, parcs.com.au

Public Wine Shop

When Campbell Burton, one of the most passionate wine pros in the city, announced he was opening a wine bar-bottle shop, the anticipation was palpable.

Essentially a bricks-and-mortar version of the wine wholesale business he runs with partner Charlotte Ryan, Public is all about minimal-intervention wines and other fun, fermented drinks.

Hundreds of these line the walls, while chef Ali Currey-Voumard (once of Tasmania's Agrarian Kitchen) oversees a menu of European classics, delivered to diners propped at the 20-seat communal table.

179 St Georges Road, Fitzroy North, publicwineshop.com.au

Rocco's Bologna Discoteca

The people who conceived this fun-loving Fitzroy restaurant clearly set out to create a place where they'd want to hang out. Luckily we want to go there, too. Wood panelling, vinyl booths and white curtains throw back to the Italian joints in which many of us grew up eating.

During lunch and late at night, hefty sandwiches reign supreme. The dinner menu, meanwhile, is maximalist and loaded with flavour. Bring your friends, order a bottle of local natural wine and join the party.

15 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, roccosbologna.com

Serai

Serai's bustling dining room has an airy, industrial appeal, using the old bones of the city to grand effect. Big-hearted and big-flavoured dishes come from an energetic open kitchen anchored by a wood grill.

Chef Ross Magnaye's ambition to marry modern Australian with the food of his Filipino heritage is thrilling – profoundly personal, refreshingly modern and in some ways, forging new paths for Australian cooking.

7 Racing Club Lane, Melbourne, seraikitchen.com.au

Victor Churchill

You could certainly stop by for a quick drink and charcuterie at the gleaming black marble horseshoe bar at the back of this famously lavish Armadale butcher shop.

But the real temptations on head chef Carl Walden's bar menu are the steaks – what else? Cooked over a charcoal-fired Josper grill, they join other luxury benchmarks done properly.

Classic cocktails use local spirits, and a fantastic wine list features blowout bottles alongside real bargains.

953 High Street, Armadale, victorchurchill.com

The Good Food Guide 2023 magazine is on sale for $9.95 at newsagents, supermarkets and thestore.com.au.