One of the more frequent questions the Good Food Guide team gets asked – especially over summer – is “what’s a great restaurant with a water view?”

Well, here are 10 of them. Handpicked from The Age Good Food Guide 2025, here are our favourite new and classic restaurants by the water, for an instant, scenic, holiday-feeling hit without even leaving the state.

Barwon Edge

It’s more than a year since the teams behind Geelong favourites Felix and Alma took over this stunning riverside venue, and a well-judged renovation and crowd-pleasing menu with Middle Eastern touches have won many hearts. Sit in the more formal restaurant to share slices of bronzed halloumi while you admire sage tiles and dark green marble that cleverly bring the eucalyptus scenery indoors.

More into breakfast and smashed avo? The adjoining cafe with playground is already on regular rotation among locals who roam the three-acre grounds with takeaway coffees and massive grins.

47 Windsor Road, Newtown, barwonedge.com.au

Donovans

Dependability is what makes bayside stayer Donovans exceptional. It opened in 1997 in a 1920s-era former bathing pavilion and while the menu barely changes, neither does its quality.

Seafood linguine is a fan favourite, packed with sweet scallops, mussels, and half a Moreton Bay bug in butter sauce with just the right amount of garlic. Grilled leader prawns are unadulterated, offering nothing to distract from the underlying quality.

Staff are young, but well trained in old-school service delivered with a relaxed charm. Sink back and let them look after you as soak up that golden St Kilda sunset.

40 Jacka Boulevard, St Kilda, donovans.com.au

Ipsos

Cracking the neighbourly-yet-worldly formula takes a small miracle in tourist towns. Ipsos, then, must have been blessed by a deity. Waiters know when to slide in and ask locals about their latest holiday before waltzing over to the
door to a find a table for an out-of-town couple. Salty, just-seared kefalograviera cheese is cut into slabs, joined by jammy preserved figs and rushed to diners with
advice to eat it while it’s hot.

Long threads of flash-fried calamari come from Lorne or Queenscliff, their freshness echoed in a glass of volcanic-soil assyrtiko from northern Greece. And the aroma of just-squeezed oranges wafts from sweet patsavoura, the custard
and filo tart, to nearby tables.

48 Mountjoy Parade, Lorne, ipsosrestaurant.com.au

Lake House

So you’ve come to worship at the Alla Wolf-Tasker altar. Four decades ago, Lake House’s culinary director pioneered the hyper-seasonal, ultra-local movement, and today her handle of all things homegrown is as impressive as ever.

Few others can produce a potato veloute this velvety, made with Dutch creams
from the restaurant’s nearby 15-hectare farm and clutching a single sweet, pickled mussel.

The beauty of this natural bounty plays well with lake views from the
recently refreshed dining room, its plush carpets and cloud-like Fandango lights as renowned as the choreographed duos that deliver each glorious plate.

4 King Street, Daylesford, lakehouse.com.au

Pipis Kiosk

With its pitched roofs and prime waterfront real estate, Pipis mimics a pair of beach boxes. Picture windows, sand-coloured drapes and a sea-green quartz bar link the interior to its setting. The menu contributes to this coastal cohesion.

Seaweed wraps charcoal-grilled turbot, served on the bone with pickled grapes for zip. Creamy Merimbula oysters arrive with an inspired rhubarb dressing, and a salad of Ramarro Farm leaves is arranged like choppy waves on the bay.

Tamagoyaki-style rolled omelette is tare-glazed and topped with spanner crab, its understated luxury mirrored in the cashmere shawls of neighbouring diners.

The kitchen also captains a takeaway window serving fish and chips and other beach-ready snacks.

129A Beaconsfield Parade, Albert Park, pipiskiosk.com.au

Pt. Leo Restaurant & Laura

It’s hard to ignore the sky, sea and sculpture just beyond the wraparound windows. Try as you might, that million-dollar view keeps pulling you back. But plenty is happening inside these two light-soaked dining rooms (Pt. Leo Restaurant the more casual; Laura degustation only), where even the cutlery is sculptural.

Arrive on a weekend and find the space filled with a flurry of multi-generational
families, international tourists and loved-up couples. Floor staff are experienced enough to keep everything on track. Using first-rate peninsula ingredients, the
busy kitchen of Pt. Leo sends out a savoury take on Basque cheesecake using Main Ridge goat’s milk alongside foraged pine mushrooms. At Laura, you might marvel at the textures of a sea urchin risotto, before you stroll around the sculpture park as nature intended.

3649 Frankston-Flinders Road, Merricks, ptleoestate.com.au

Sardine Dining

You might be on the deck watching the Raymond Island ferry come and go on a summer’s evening, or fireside on a foggy winter’s night: either way, certain things remain the same.

Service is attentive and warm, and refined cooking leans on ingredients from Gippsland’s waters and fields. Owner-chef Mark Briggs worked with some of the world’s best before opening this modern, grey-toned restaurant – now with
adjoining wine bar – in 2017.

His crumpets beg to be smeared with buttery potted shrimp. Sardine fillets loll in grassy chive oil, and crisp-skinned Lakes Entrance snapper comes with a sauce boosted by chicken stock. Hazelnut parfait with chocolate sorbet and honeycomb nuggets channels posh Violet Crumble. Making the familiar fabulous is the ninja skill of this waterside diner.

69 Esplanade, Paynesville, sardinedining.com.au

Sodafish

When staff boast that everything is sourced locally at this floating restaurant, they’re not kidding. The king prawns twirled with spaghettini, chilli and garlic? Your waiter will point to a trawler along the jetty. Chunky octopus? Grilled
flathead? Sirloin steak? All local – even the carrots in a cake crowned by caramel cream. That octopus gets oomph from chorizo and a sauce fragrant with vadouvan spices.

Beurre blanc alongside the flathead hums with preserved tomato. Moored among the Lakes Entrance fishing fleet, this former ferry is a prime spot to sip a Gippsland chardonnay at a blondwood table, and watch the sun set and the
pelicans cruise by.

The ends of the venue have the best views – inside and out – so if that’s important, ask when you book. The fact that service is cheerful is all the more reason to step aboard.

Middle Boat Harbour, Esplanade, Lakes Entrance, sodafish.com.au

Stokehouse

Palm fronds will wave, corks will pop, seafood platters will adorn tables: these are the laws of Stokehouse. There’s unhampered creativity, too, when the kitchen
colours outside the lines. Orange segments wink from under grilled flathead fillets, a burst of unconventional citrus that pairs well with sea urchin veloute and the tender fish whose skin rustles when cut.

There’s just-set scallop mousse snuck into a firm round of steamed cod wrapped in daikon: the shellfish deepening and sweetening a dish made for diehard seafood fans. Quail terrine is one of many fish-free dishes, while desserts are as preppy as a twinset.

Extra touches from the floor team have everyone walking on sunshine, even if it’s
not your birthday or anniversary. For big-deal meals, Stokehouse is as safe as houses.

30 Jacka Boulevard, St Kilda, stokehouse.com.au

Stokehouse Pasta & Bar

Even as storm clouds roll in across the bay, Stokehouse’s sand-adjacent casual venue remains as sunny as its smiling, informal staff. It helps that every bottle on the list is priced at a wallet-friendly $79, and the menu is packed with
well-executed crowd-pleasers.

Bite-sized chunks of fried halloumi are offset by discs of grilled celeriac
and fresh fig, and scorched squid comes licked with tangy seaweed
sauce. And a retro lemon meringue sundae comes with the requisite (maraschino) cherry on top.

From the long timber bar to the Aperol-orange umbrellas to the ultra-wide ocean views, the energy is relaxed in a way that’s only natural this close to the bay.

Ground level, 30 Jacka Boulevard, St Kilda, stokepastaandbar.com.au