Regional restaurants of Australia, we love you. The time and fuel it takes to get to you only adds to our appreciation. Passion and hyper-local produce are your hallmarks and for this we are grateful.

We would even go so far as to say that some of our favourite eating in Australia is done in your dining rooms. When we have lists of places we want to visit most, there is always a regional place in our top five. Here, then, are the places the Good Food team cannot wait to hit up this summer.

New South Wales

Bistro Livi, Murwillumbah

The long-term dream for regional Australia would be for every town across the country to have a small restaurant owned and run by dedicated young hospitality professionals that delivers charm, warmth, hustle, good wines and a real sense of where you are. Lucky Murwillumbah has Bistro Livi, which does all that and more. Chefs, Ewen Crawford and Danni Wilson, and front-of-house (and twin sister) Nikky Wilson bring a jazz groove to the menu, which flows from Pottsville spanner crab with caviar accompaniments, to slow-cooked Three Paddock Farm goat with marsala, mandarin and star anise, and on to the benchmark chocolate cake. Small wonder it’s the SMH Good Food Guide’s regional restaurant of the year. Terry Durack

Cnr Brisbane Street and Proudfoots Lane, Murwillumbah, bistrolivi.com

Valentina, Merimbula

We road-tripped north in early 2023, so this summer we’re heading down the NSW south and this pastel beauty is in my sights. It’s in Sydney rock oyster country and the restaurant has full-length windows overlooking oyster beds, so it would be rude of us not to begin with a dozen before progressing to grilled octopus with ’nduja, the seasonal pasta and the gloriously golden wow-it’s-so-hefty crumbed cauliflower parmigiana. The wine list looks rad, too. We’ll probably finish with a nightcap at nearby Dulcie’s Cottage. Sarah Norris

2 Market Street, Merimbula, valentinamerimbula.com

Osteria Il Coccia, Ettalong Beach

He is very Italian. She is half Italian, half French. Together, Nico and Alexandra Coccia run a slightly bonkers osteria in the sleepy seaside hamlet of Ettalong Beach, just an hour north of Sydney. The cooking is over fire; instinctive, smoky and power-packed. The mighty sourdough bread and smoked butter set the scene – even the porcini risotto is cooked over fire – and the wines match the food both technically and emotionally. If this were coastal Italy or France, there would be Ferraris and paparazzi at their door. Lucky for us, they’re in Ettalong instead. Jill Dupleix

49 The Esplanade, Ettalong Beach, osteriailcoccia.com.au

Bruno’s Mediterranean Kitchen, Bellingen

When the silly season winds down we’re heading to Bellingen, where the long, humid days are punctuated by ice-cold ginger beers at Bellingen Brewing Co, scoops of pomegranate sorbet at Bellingen Gelato and dinners on the verandah of Bruno’s. Brothers Joshua and Oliver Gluck run the Mediterranean kitchen with head chef Jesse Dolman, who transforms local produce into delish-sounding dishes like grilled sugar loaf cabbage brushed with tomato oil, and served with dill yoghurt and parmesan pangrattato. Bonus: the feed-me set menu is just $65 a head. Bianca Hrovat

2 Oak Street, Bellingen, brunosbellingen.com.au

The Milton Hotel, Milton

Forays from the city are few and far between for our small family, but if we were to venture further afield it would almost certainly be to The Milton Hotel on the NSW South Coast. This one-hat country pub is chilled out, child-friendly (complete with playground) and sounds like just the ticket for relaxed holiday eating. Relaunched and refurbished a few years ago by Ulladulla chef and bodyboarder Damien Martin, the 1800s-built boozer now brews excellent, interesting beers on site and serves “bloody great” food. We’ll be ordering the wood-fired prawns with curry leaf butter and tamarind, plus a half-chook in peri-peri sauce, finished off with one of those beers on the back deck looking out to the ocean. Megan Johnston

74 Princes Highway, Milton, themiltonhotel.com

Bar Vecina, Newcastle

Flotilla has been Newcastle’s hottest place to drink gamay and eat dry-aged duck for the past four years, and now the hatted restaurant has opened Vecina, a slick wine bar just next door. Chef Jake Deluca spent several years at the Hunter Valley’s legendary Bistro Molines before joining Flotilla earlier in 2023, and I’m expecting great things from his new snack menu featuring chicken liver parfait, fish rillettes, and steak tartare with crunchy pillows of gnocco fritto. Meanwhile, co-owner Eduardo Molina has assembled the Steel City’s largest by-the-glass wine list and the cocktails look damn fine, too. White burgundy, martinis and oysters, ahoy. Callan Boys

9 Albert Street, Wickham, theflotilla.com.au

Bar Heather, Byron Bay

Bar Heather had just opened when I was in Byron in April 2023 and the locals were raving about it. “It’s just like a Melbourne bar,” said someone I was chatting to. Absolutely no way was I going to visit (I was up from Melbourne) – I wanted to sit at a light, bright bar, preferably with sweeping sea views. But then Callan Boys declared it “some of the most engaging cooking I’ve encountered all year”. And when I found out this wine bar coats hibachi-grilled duck breast with a sauce made from its own rendered fat, mead vinegar and star anise, and serves it under radicchio grown at the famed Boon Luck Farm a few kilometres north, I was sold. I plan to follow Boys’ advice: run, don’t walk; fly, don’t drive. And for goodness’ sake, book ahead. Ardyn Bernoth

G9 Jonson Lane, 139 Jonson Street, Byron Bay, barheather.com

Victoria

Ipsos, Lorne

Greek food by the sea is not a hard sell, but for some reason, a stop at Ipsos has evaded me whenever I’ve travelled to this side of Port Phillip Bay. This summer, I’m determined to get to this family-run institution and order until the table is heaving with locally caught calamari fried with garlic and lemon, warm bread, taramasalata, fava with smoked eel and capers, and whatever else looks good that day. After we roll out of there, we’ll stroll to Little Picket at the bowls club, where award-winning chef Jo Barrett steers the kitchen, take a wistful look and plot a return for lunch tomorrow. Emma Breheny

48 Mountjoy Parade, Lorne, ipsosrestaurant.com.au

Tarra, Queenscliff

Jacques Reymond-trained chef Michael Demagistris oversees the food at Tarra, the on-site restaurant at Queenscliff’s striking ferry terminal, as well as on the boats, which carry 10,000 passengers a day in the high season. The menu is simple, based on produce that is local to Queenscliff, as well as Mornington Peninsula ingredients Demagistris brings across by ferry. That might be heirloom tomatoes from Point Lonsdale paired with burrata and fresh basil, or a summer pavlova topped with vanilla and white chocolate cream and Sunny Ridge strawberries grown in Boneo. Tarra is open for breakfast and lunch only for now, but Demagistris is working towards it becoming a destination beachfront restaurant. “I don’t think you find too many restaurants sitting right on the sand watching vessels come and go, even dolphins coming across.” Dani Valent

1 Wharf Street East, Queenscliff, tarra.com.au

Honcho, Mansfield

With the ever-expanding array of Mexican and South American options in Victoria, I was intrigued to see that what looks like a truly ambitious Mexican restaurant has opened in Mansfield. Honcho bills itself as “modern Mexican x Australian” and its menu is centred around cooking over fire, which is a major component of some of the most exciting food happening in Mexico right now. The menu looks so fun – there are dishes like a “birria spliff”, which appears to be smoked beef and queso rolled into a cigar with consomme for dipping, and there’s a full margarita menu (plus other cocktails). The $65-a-head tasting menu looks like a bargain, too. Besha Rodell

28 Highett Street, Mansfield, honcho3722.com

Ragazzone, Ballarat

I’ll be spending a fair whack of time in Ballarat this summer and top of my list of places to try in this booming town is recently hatted Italian charmer Ragazzone (which loosely translates to “childish adult”; I already feel seen). This cosy room with its peach-coloured walls lined with wine bottles looks right up my alley, and so does the food. I’ll graze on elegant starters like fried zucchini flowers, ricotta, smoked scamorza, pecorino and fried king prawns before tucking a napkin into my top for Carmelo’s lasagne with pork and veal ragu, sweet sausage and basil, washed down with a great sangiovese from that aforementioned wall. La dolce vita, Ballarat style. Andrea McGinniss

319 Mair Street, Ballarat, ragazzone.com.au

Kin, Wahgunyah

Once upon a time, I worked in a real Scottish castle, so I’m keen to check out the replica at All Saints in the Rutherglen region in Victoria’s north-east. While it’s not “Bonnie Scotland”, there’s a smart-casual pizzeria named Bonnie, perfect for a sunny al fresco lunch with a bottle of rosé overlooking the lake. A stay in sibling Mount Ophir Estate‘s Rapunzel-esque tower accommodation is in order, so I can make a weekend of it and lunch at The Age Good Food Guide 2024’s Regional Restaurant of the Year, Kin, too, saving room for chef Jack Cassidy’s flourless chocolate cake with raspberries and muscat paired with something fortified, like the walls. Annabel Smith

All Saints Estate, 205 All Saints Road, Wahgunyah, allsaintswine.com.au; Mount Ophir Estate, 168 Stillards Lane, Rutherglen, mountophirestate.com.au

Amaro Bar, Beechworth

Beechworth, in Victoria’s north-east, punches above its weight for food and wine options. That’s truer than ever now that Michael Ryan and Jeanette Henderson have opened a cocktail bar above their two-hatted restaurant, Provenance. The bar, which Ryan says is open “most Friday nights, some Saturday nights and whenever I feel like it”, showcases his small-batch amari and bitters, marketed under the Beechworth Bitters Company label. While there, I’ll admire (and trying not to break) Ryan’s collection of vintage glasses and snack on house-preserved olives, tinned fish, and cheese from The Peaks in nearby Myrtleford. Or better yet, I’ll start downstairs at the Japanese-inflected restaurant and head upstairs for a nightcap. Roslyn Grundy

Upstairs, 86 Ford Street, Beechworth, theprovenance.com.au