One of the things I look forward to most in this job is the annual launch of the Herald’s Good Food Guide. There’s a real sense of excitement as the best and brightest of Sydney’s hospitality scene gather to find out who has won a coveted chef’s hat, and who may have missed out.

This year’s launch was held at the Sydney Opera House on Monday night and I thought I’d ask two stars of the show, Good Food head Sarah Norris and Guide co-editor Callan Boys, to fill you in on all things food, glorious food, and introduce you to the new Good Food app – the result of 18 months of mammoth effort by people from all corners of our business.

Callan, the first thing people want to know when the Guide comes out each year is who has won – or lost – a coveted chef’s hat. Were there any surprises this year?

Several restaurants lost a hat, often due to service or lack of value. Or maybe the food just wasn’t up to scratch – the reasons for a hat drop are many and varied. We don’t enjoy doing it, either, but we don’t want to direct readers to part with their money at a restaurant where a good (or great) experience isn’t guaranteed.

We ask our reviewers to ask themselves, “Would you return here and spend your own money, or at least recommend it to a friend or family member?” If the answer is no, then the restaurant’s inclusion is really put under the microscope. We will often revisit the venue before a final decision is made. Was it just one bad night, or are the problems more constant?

Sometimes a restaurant will be dropped without a second visit, though. One such place was a rather expensive and very popular joint where I was looking directly at an open toilet door – and a seat left up – for more than an hour. That kind of thing really detracts from the triple-digit steak on the plate. It also lets me know that there are systemic problems with front-of-house management and training – that so many staff would walk past the door and not think to close it. (The steak was pretty ordinary, too.)

Notable restaurants that lost a hat include China Doll (Woolloomooloo), Alpha (CBD), Marta (Rushcutters Bay), Franca (Potts Point), Ragazzi (CBD) and Restaurant Leo (CBD).

Of course, there were also plenty of places that gained a hat, including more than a dozen venues that opened in the past 12 months, such as 20 Chapel in Marrickville, Neil Perry’s high-end Cantonese destination Song Bird, and our New Restaurant of the Year winner Firepop in Enmore. It was also excellent to see Penrith claim its first hat thanks to Sinclair’s, overlooking the Nepean River.

How many restaurants are in this year’s Guide?

We have 380 full restaurant reviews, which is the most ever for NSW and the ACT. As well, there are smaller bar and cafe reviews, plus coverage of the essential spots to eat and drink in other states. There are about 500 entries in total.

The Critics’ Picks are back again in this year’s Guide. What’s the thinking behind them?

Yes, they’re back for the second year, and there are a lot more of them. Unlike the chef’s hats introduced in 1984 (awarded in the first edition for “exceptional establishments” offering “fine food, distinguished surroundings and good service”) the Critics’ Pick indicates a venue we wholeheartedly recommend, regardless of score. They may not hit every metric in our traditional scoring system but we can absolutely vouch for their deliciousness, and that each one is vital in its own way.

Since 1995, when the Good Food Guide first published a score out of 20 for every listed venue, there has always been some tension between the restaurants we love to eat at every day of the week, and the ones awarded one or more hats (which, of course, are well deserved). Under our longstanding system, 10 points are awarded for food, five for hospitality, three for the setting and experience, and two for value. By nature, this favours restaurants with greater resources and a flash fit-out; less so smaller, independent places with modest furniture and a one-person floor team.

The score was designed to be seen in context along with the written review: 14/20 was good-going for a cafe with milk crates as seats, but suggested room for improvement in a ritzy CBD bistro. However, with the launch of the new Good Food app we needed a symbol to indicate that while a venue may not have a hat, what it offers is far more important than the score on the page and we highly recommend it. The Critics’ Pick tick was born.

When does planning for the Guide start?

It starts from the day the Guide is published each year and I begin receiving emails from readers to let me know if there’s a particular restaurant that wasn’t reviewed which I should consider for inclusion. These venues are added to a master list and assessed again in February if I think they look interesting and delicious enough to warrant sending a reviewer there.

February is when the real planning with my co-editor David Matthews starts, when we consider how many restaurants we need to review, which reviewers are keen to contribute again, and how many reviews we need to commission from each person. With more than 400 restaurants to get to across the state, there is a lot of planning.

How do you choose which places to review?

Any restaurant that scored one or more hats in the previous Guide will be re-reviewed for the new edition. If we think a restaurant that scored less than 15/20 (the minimum score for a hat) has improved and could be up for a hat, too, we’ll add that to the list.

We also want the Guide to tell a story about how we eat and drink right here and now. A new venue is considered if it looks interesting and exciting, has proven talent at the helm or is doing something that sets it apart.

How many places do the review team visit to whittle down to the final list?

I can’t tell you how many regional restaurants I’ve driven hours to eat at, hoping for great things, and left disappointed. Actually, yes I can – over the past three years that number is 24. Then there are all the city and suburban restaurants that don’t make the cut. For the new edition there were 32 restaurants that I or another reviewer quietly, anonymously visited and decided not to write about.

In many ways social media has made it easier to identify an ordinary restaurant without having to visit. I can now spot a bad creme brulee from hundreds of kilometres away. It usually has an edible flower on it. But restaurants with deep pockets are increasingly social media-savvy, too – the food can look great on Instagram, and much can be promised.

How does the scoring system work, and what does it take to get a chef’s hat?

Ten points are awarded for food, five for hospitality, three for the setting and experience, and two for value. A score of 15/20 means one chef’s hat, 16/20 is two chef’s hats, 18/20 is three. Since 1995, when scoring was introduced (before then there were chef’s hats but no points system), a restaurant has never scored 20/20.

The two points allocated for “value” can often mean that a perfectly fine restaurant doesn’t make it into the Guide. If the reviewer walks away thinking, “well, that was OK, but too expensive for the level of cooking and service offered”, it may not make the cut.

What does it take to be a Good Food Guide reviewer? Do you need special expertise or qualifications?

Our reviewers work in a range of fields and many of them are freelancers. Most have been writing about food and restaurants for years, if not decades. We look for people with keen observation skills, a sharp and informed palate, and the ability to make each review an interesting read in 140 words. This last part isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are probably as many excellent writers with terrible palates as there are excellent food professionals who are terrible writers.

Do restaurants know a reviewer is coming?

Reviewers are instructed to always book under a fake name, or their dining partner’s name. With online bookings now the status quo, this also means using a phone number and email address unknown to the restaurant. A savvy restaurant or hospitality group will have every prior customer’s data stored, and a known reviewer will be pinged by the booking system immediately.

Fake names and emails are easy to make. Phone numbers, a bit harder. I have two burner phones that I use, and keep a record of which restaurant and group I’ve used them with. It’s also handy to use parents’ and friends’ phone numbers when booking, provided you also remember to let them know they can expect a reservation confirmation call. (I once forgot to tell my flatmate that Quay might be calling, and the situation played out like an episode of Seinfeld: “Vandelay Industries! Say Vandelay Industries!” )

Do you try to ensure a balance between inner city, suburban and regional venues, a range of cuisines and different price points?

That’s really important. We want the Guide to feature restaurants that are accessible to everyone, for any occasion. The Good Food Guide’s first editor, Leo Schofield, said it best in a Good Weekend feature published in 1985: “I don’t have a favourite restaurant. Restaurants are like clothes. You wear what feels right on the day.” More and more, this notion has informed the venues we choose to feature in the Guide, which this year includes more than 500 reviews, from fine diners in the CBD, to a Tenterfield wine bar, to a Penrith pub.

Sarah, the hospitality industry has been plagued by controversy this year with the Swillhouse Group and Ivy scandals, the backlash against Nomad boss Alan Yazbek for displaying a Nazi symbol, and Attica chef Ben Shewry skewering restaurant critics in his new book. Has any of this changed your approach?

These events haven’t changed our commitment to helping people choose, in a sea of options, where to eat. Our main goal is still to be a service to readers, not to chefs, and to provide honest recommendations so diners can make informed decisions about where to visit. With money tighter than ever for most diners, our readers want to know where they should spend their money, and be able to trust those recommendations.

The Swillhouse and Merivale reporting has put workplace culture in the spotlight, and 2024 feels like a watershed moment for the Australian hospitality industry. This is the moment industry norms are interrogated and reassessed, and staff wellbeing and an empowering workplace become just as important as the bottom line.

The days after we published those first few stories I heard people say that any hospo business worth its salt is now assessing its workplace systems and policies. And that can only be a good thing.

We have a role to play as well, which is why we introduced the Cultural Change Champion Award to highlight the great initiatives and programs that are making the hospitality industry a better place to work. There are many, and it’s time for those to be celebrated.

As Good Food Guide co-editor David Matthews says: “We write about a lot more than food and drink when we write about restaurants. But if the reporting this year has shown us anything, it’s that we – food media, the dining public – also need to engage much more deeply and consistently on how venues are treating their staff.”

On a positive note, the Good Food team also launched the new Good Food app this week? What’s the idea behind it?

It’s a really exciting evolution for us that builds on what we did last year when we fully integrated Good Food into The Sydney Morning Herald. We’ve now taken it the extra step, and the app is about making Good Food more user-friendly, and offering greater utility to people’s lives.

A big part of that is making the Good Food Guide available in interactive digital form for the first time. The 500 independent reviews that we’ve just published for the 2025 edition are now searchable within the app via a map and a location-based “nearby” function. I think this will be particularly useful if you’re in an unfamiliar part of town and want a suggestion from a trusted source on where to eat. I’ve been saying it’ll be like having a Good Food Guide reviewer on speed dial.

The app also has 10,000 recipes from Australia’s top chefs and recipe creators, as well as meal planners and cooking inspiration. Plus there’s a daily feed of restaurant news on places that have just opened. Herald readers have been loving our nutrition and healthy eating advice, so we have got a spot in the app for those, too. The good thing is the app will continue to evolve with more features, and the map will become busier with recommendations. We’ll be responding to what users are telling us they want to see, and introduce some fun, cute ways to build the Good Food community.

How can people get the app?

It’s available as a stand-alone subscription or as part of the Herald’s Premium Digital packages for subscribers. You can download it from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store for Android.

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