Restaurants from Blacktown to Bangalow received hospitality’s top honours during a star-studded awards ceremony at the Sydney Opera House on Monday, for the 40th annual The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide awards, presented by Vittoria Coffee and Oceania Cruises.

Seafood champions Josh and Julie Niland took home the Vittoria Coffee Restaurant of the Year award for their fine-dining restaurant Saint Peter, which reopened at Paddington’s historic Grand National Hotel in August.

Saint Peter was one of four restaurants to receive the Good Food Guide’s highest achievement, three hats, alongside Quay (The Rocks), Sixpenny (Stanmore) and Oncore by Clare Smyth (Barangaroo).

Celebrity cook and television personality Adam Liaw welcomed a crowd of 500 to the Concert Hall, marking 40 years since former chief restaurant reviewer Leo Schofield (“Mr Public Stomach”) launched Sydney’s first Good Food Guide to eating well.

This year, for the first time, the collection of restaurant, bar and cafe reviews will be available digitally via the new Good Food App, launched today.

The awards ceremony celebrated the trailblazers, changemakers and legends which made NSW and the ACT such exceptional places to eat in 2024. And, with a team of 25 independent reviewers travelling from Pambula on the Far South Coast, to Tenterfield in New England over the past 12 months, there’s been a lot of eating.

It has been a tumultuous year for the hospitality industry, which has been affected by inflation, cost of living pressures, and a crisis of culture. But it has also been a year of perseverance: For all the closures, more venues have opened. For every scandal, there has been a greater commitment to safe and supportive workplaces. And amid the fanfare for considered, fine-dining experiences, there is an ever-growing appreciation for budget-friendly places, feeding diners as inflation hit hard.

Among the vast constellation of openings, one restaurant burned particularly bright: Firepop in Enmore, awarded New Restaurant of the Year presented by Aurum Poultry Co., a flame-grilled fine diner from husband-and-wife team, chef Raymond Hou and sommelier Alina Van.

It’s a dream nearly 20 years in the making − from Hou’s first Chinatown market stall in 2005, to the Firepop food truck launched with Van in 2019, to this handsome two-storey restaurant with an inspiring menu of “Inner West cuisine” and new-age wines.

Hou’s signature cumin and lamb skewers (or “pops”) have remained a staple throughout, but at this iteration of Firepop they’re served alongside other meticulously crafted dishes such as Tathra Place duck breast, house-cured over six days with salt and Szechuan pepper, and gently charred snap peas with a umami-rich rhubarb soy sauce.

“Firepop isn’t the Guide’s highest scoring new restaurant, but it’s certainly the most exciting opening of the past 12 months, with its own fresh style,” said Callan Boys, who co-edited this year’s Guide with David Matthews, former editor of the WA Good Food Guide.

Boys said inflationary pressures had driven venues towards risk-averse menu options (looking at you, prawn toast) as diners sought comfort, value and reliability.

“At the same time, there’s a lot of restaurants out there competing for a slice of the market, and it’s also important to set yourself apart with a fresh, unique offering,” Boys said.

“From concept to execution, running a restaurant isn’t easy, and kudos goes to all the hospitality operators across NSW and ACT which didn’t make this year’s Guide but continue to run successful, ethical businesses.”

Saint Peter was recognised as the Restaurant of the Year, after its greater kitchen capacity and new 45-seat dining room, saw chef Josh Niland finally capable of realising his world-class ambitions.

Niland was named the Good Food Guide’s Chef of the Year in 2023 for his pioneering whole-fish philosophy − a low-waste method of seafood cookery he continues to advance at Saint Peter, where fish bones are used to make noodles and a charcuterie board features everything from John Dory liver pate to swordfish belly bacon.

“Josh’s talent has never been in question, nor has his impact, so in many ways his winning Chef of the Year at some point always felt inevitable,” Matthews said.

“But winning Restaurant of the Year? For me, it’s recognition that Saint Peter has become the restaurant it always promised to be.”

The title of Oceania Cruises Chef of the Year was handed to Paul Farag, the executive chef behind two-hatted Levantine restaurant Aalia, among others.

Farag worked under acclaimed chefs such as Niland and Colin Fassnidge before stepping into his own at Surry Hills restaurant Nour.

“Farag tapped into his Egyptian heritage and helped transform conceptions of what Middle Eastern cuisine in Sydney could be,” Boys said.

But there is more to a great restaurant than a great chef. Oceania Cruises Service Excellence Award went to Maureen Er from White Horse (Surry Hills), while Caitlin Baker from Such and Such (Canberra) became Sommelier of the Year.

In December last year, the hospitality industry lost one man who played a pivotal role in Australia’s culinary history: Bill Granger. The beloved chef, author and restaurateur changed the way Australians thought about food − revolutionising cafe culture through his eponymous restaurants, which spread sunshine and avocado toast from Darlinghurst to Tokyo.

For his incredible service to Sydney hospitality, Granger was posthumously awarded the Vittoria Coffee Legend Award. His daughter, Edie, accepted on his behalf.

“Food is a constant adventure, one that never tires,” Granger once told Jill Dupleix in an interview for The Australian Financial Review.

As that adventure continues, Granger’s memory was honoured with the Bill Granger Trailblazer Award, developed with Granger’s family.

Baba’s Place was the first recipient, a hatted Marrickville restaurant proudly emblematic of suburban Australia.

“What co-owners Alex Kelly, Jean-Paul El Tom and James Bellos have created is a freewheeling celebration of the suburban Sydney experience grounded in the stories of immigrant families and their shared experiences of food and cooking,” Matthews said.

“The result is a reclamation of what Australian cooking is and can be.”

The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2025, featuring more than 450 reviews, is on sale for $14.95 from 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.