The Age Good Food Guide Awards as it happened: Full list of winners, hats revealed

What a night of cafe, pub and restaurant reinventions and tiny but mighty venues where it’s only going to get harder to nab a booking. Thanks for following our live coverage of The Age Good Food Guide Awards.

Read all about the ceremony in our news story here, peruse the full list of hats and find out more about all the major award winners.

And don’t forget to download our brand-new Good Food app (it’s like having a Good Food Guide editor in your pocket).

Come back tomorrow to read the wash-up on which restaurants lost and gained hats in the new Guide.

I’m off to fetch myself a negroni and some fried chicken with hot honey.

The Age Good Food Guide Awards attendees John Rivera (Askal), Philippa Sibley (Pinotta), Anthony Scutella (New Restaurant of the Year, Bar Olo) and Tobin Kent (Restaurant of the Year, Moonah) share their underrated Melbourne restaurant picks.

From one hat to three, here’s the essential list of every hat-winning restaurant from The Age Good Food Guide 2025.

Download the new Good Food App and find every review from the 2025 The Age Good Food Guide edition, complete with hats, maps and much more.

Premium Digital subscribers can download the Good Food app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store now.

Who got the hats?

The Age Good Food Guide 2025, featuring 500 reviews, is on sale on Tuesday for $14.95 at newsagents, supermarkets and at thestore.com.au.

Plus: Cook the cover stars at home with Katrina Meynink’s four hot, new skewer recipes.

The Victorian edition of the Good Food Guide 2025.Credit: Good Food

The Vittoria Coffee Restaurant of the Year is the final award of the night, so let’s recap, before we get to the full list of hats. Congratulations to all the winners! Read more about them all here

And the winners are

• Vittoria Coffee Restaurant of the Year – Moonah
• Oceania Cruises Chef of the Year – Jung Eun Chae, Chae
• New Restaurant of the Year, presented by Aurum Poultry Co. – Bar Olo
• Vittoria Coffee Regional Restaurant of the Year – Messmates
• Oceania Cruises Service Excellence Award – Rajnor Soin, Vue de Monde
• Young Chef of the Year, presented by Smeg  – Saavni Krishnan
• NEW Katie McCormack Young Service Talent Award – Nicole Sharrad
• Sommelier of the Year – Tess Murray, Chauncy
• Vittoria Coffee Legend Award – Greg Malouf
• Drinks List of the Year – Bar Spontana
• Cafe of the Year – Moon Mart
• Bar of the Year – Apollo Inn
• Pub of the Year – The Punters Club
• Critics’ Pick Award – Danny’s Kopitiam
• Food for Good, presented by Lightspeed – Samesyn
• NEW Cultural Change Champion – Jamie Bucirde, Not So Hospitable and On The Cusp

Chef Tobin Kent of Moonah restaurant.Credit: Marnie Hawson

Moonah

The waterside 12-seater in Connewarre, near Torquay, is this year’s Vittoria Coffee Restaurant of the Year.

The Guide says: Ingredients come from no further than 200 kilometres away, in a tribute to this part of Victoria. Chef of the Year finalist Tobin Kent and his team have most likely grown, foraged or fermented what’s on the menu, whether that’s abalone, duck sausage, an heirloom apple or fresh curd cheese. They will pour you wine from small vessels made of clay, that’s dug from the restaurant’s nearby farm.

Some dishes may remind you of the salty breeze that blows along the Great Ocean Road, others of the nearby Otways forest. This is hyper-regional cooking, fundamentally connected to the place where you’re dining.

“The biggest compliment, for me personally, the reason, is to be understood and appreciated for what we do, and [those words, above, show Good Food] understands exactly what we do. And for [Good Food] to see that and share that with all you, is the biggest compliment,” Kent says.

After going unscored in last year’s The Age Good Food Guide due to renovations, Vue de Monde is the new addition to the coveted three-hat club, joining last year’s debutant, Amaru, and stalwarts Brae and Minamishima.

Three-hat worthy dishes at (from left) Amaru; Vue de Monde; Brae and Minamishima.

Chef Jung Eun Chae with some of her many ferments.Credit: Simon Schluter

It takes guts to open a restaurant that’s unlike any other, and determination to do things your way without bending to trends. A strong sense of conviction is necessary to trade just two days a week, and to serve only six diners at a time. And you need an unwavering sense of hospitality to do it all in your own home.

Congratulations to Chef of the Year, Jung Eun Chae.

At her eponymous restaurant in Cockatoo, Chae tends to kimchi, soy sauce, gochujang and doenjang – cornerstone Korean ingredients made using centuries-old methods.

In an industry where working at speed is lauded, her slow-food philosophy is liberating. That’s not to say experiencing it is easy. Her cooking has captured the attention of tens of thousands of online fans, many of whom you’re competing against when entering the monthly ballot for a rare seat … good luck getting a booking!

Chae takes to the stage to whoops and applause from her peers (“we love you” shouts one).

“This is a great honour, thank you for such a high recognition of Korean cuisine. I will treasure this moment forever.”

Is it a bar? Is it a restaurant? It’s the best of both at Bar Olo

Bar Olo may appear to be a simple, cosy room, but there’s magic behind those curtains.Credit: Simon Schluter

Sometimes a restaurant comes along that’s so exactly what it ought to be, that embodies its time and place so well, it feels inevitable. But is this a restaurant, or is it a bar? The beauty of Bar Olo (sibling to Scopri) is how successfully it straddles both.

It draws on the Italian history of Carlton, the area’s current boom of excellent cocktail and wine bars, and the best of this city’s hospitality, rolling it all into a package that meets diners on their terms.

Expect textbook execution of what Melbourne does so well: Italian classics cooked with care, fantastic cocktails, superb wine and exceptional service.

A round of applause – and a coil of pappardelle – for Bar Olo!

• More Melbourne restaurants with spin-off bars