• Full list of hats
• All the award winners

On a night when several stalwart restaurants were stripped of chef hats, The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2025 Awards highlighted the emergence of inner-west suburb Marrickville and neighbouring Newtown as the city’s new dining destinations.

“It’s the new Surry Hills, absolutely,” editor Callan Boys says of the rise of talent in the industrial streets of Marrickville, with Baba’s Place and former Rockpool chef Corey Costelloe’s 20 Chapel joining the one-hat club this year. He expects the area will continue to flourish, thanks to a link to Sydney’s new Metro and more attractive rent for emerging talent frozen out of traditional restaurant turf.

It was a similar story in neighbouring Newtown, where Comedor and Maiz debuted with hats and Firepop went one better, not only snaring a fedora, but edging out a field of fancied rivals to claim new restaurant of the year.

The laws of physics always hover precariously over the Guide, with this year’s falls including stalwarts Fratelli Paradiso, China Doll, Alpha and Marta, which all dropped out of the one-hat category. Franca, Ragazzi, Continental Deli Bar Bistro, Restaurant Leo and cult CBD steakhouse Bistecca also fell out.

On historic Bridge Street in the CBD, high-profile restaurants Clam Bar and the Bentley Restaurant Group’s Brasserie 1930 were demoted from two toques to one. The Bentley crew fared better across town at its Asian eatery King Clarence, which joined new modern Korean venue Allta in achieving the rare and difficult feat of debuting in the Guide with two hats.

The list of one-hat arrivals read at times like the birth notices from the 1940s, with Sydney’s Pearl and Jane joined by Norma, in Albury. “We just needed a Mavis,” Boys says.

It was often the less-trodden restaurant path that bore fruit, with newly hatted restaurants including Taste of Shunde in Hurstville, Ammos at Brighton-le-Sands, Sinclair’s in Penrith and Cricca in Windsor, which Boys cited for its inspiring backstory. “Two young chefs who wanted to create something special near where they grew up, tapping into produce of the Sydney basin,” he says.

Fork and pen in hand, the Guide team picked over more than 400 restaurants this awards season. With the standard of Sydney food never higher, Boys explained that a point or two of lost marks for service determined the fate of some of the latest batch. One restaurant lost a mark not because it had a toilet directly facing the dining room, but because the reviewer noted that not one staff member thought to close the door during service.

“When you have to look at a loo with its seat left up, it really takes the shine off a $100 steak,” he says.

In the snakes and ladders of the Guide, Balmoral institution Bathers’ Pavilion rose from one hat to two after recruiting chef Aaron Ward, and an upgrade in digs and service helped the reborn Saint Peter in Paddington climb to the dining summit of three hats, which also planted a flag as restaurant of the year.

Why all the fuss about hats? In a changing world, it remains a benchmark. One regional restaurateur told Boys their hat puts more bums on seats than any online review.

The awards shine a light on the restaurant industry’s trials and triumphs. In April, landslides closed the road to Megalong Restaurant, a formidable challenge for the then-year-old restaurant. The regional restaurant, which grows and raises most of its own produce, not only overcame the disruption to trade but impressed the Guide team, earning a hat.

Then there was the redemption story of Paddington restaurant Buon Ricordo, which until last year had a run of hats that stretched back to 1990. It’s rare for a restaurant to bounce back the year after demotion, but when the roll-call of Good Food Guide hats was read out at the Sydney Opera House on Monday night, the Italian stalwart was back (Chaco Bar shared the same feat).

As for the next awards redemption arc, we’ll have to wait until next year.

The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2025, featuring more than 450 reviews, is on sale for $14.95 at newsagents, supermarkets and at thestore.com.au.

The new Good Food app is now available to download, featuring Good Food Guide reviews, recipes and food news. It’s available as a standalone subscription and as part of Nine’s Premium Digital packages for subscribers of The Sydney Morning Herald. Premium Digital subscribers can download the Good Food app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store now.