It’s less than a month into 2024 and already the list of anticipated restaurant openings is lengthening. The Good Food team has travelled to all points of the compass to file reports on the imminent launches you need to know about this year.

From one of the biggest names in hospitality shifting his Sydney fine diner to new quarters to a rising star opening a 12-seat restaurant on a Huon Valley farm, these are the new restaurants around the country most likely to shape the Australian dining scene this year.

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

BY CALLAN BOYS

Beltana Farm

Set among more than 800 truffle-friendly trees in semi-rural Pialligo, just outside Canberra, Beltana Farm looks to be this year’s hottest place for a cold-weather weekend. Cottage accommodation and luxury yurts are onsite, truffle hunts take place in winter, and a handsomely designed restaurant sports all things rustic and seasonal. Led by the team behind Canberra’s Boat House fine diner, Beltana’s restaurant will open in mid-February with a menu featuring charcoal-grilled ox tongue with lilly pilly and horseradish; roast chicken and stuffing; and butterflied snapper with fennel, orange and capers. Truffle season can’t come fast enough.

14 Beltana Road, Pialligo, beltanafarm.au

NEW SOUTH WALES

BY SCOTT BOLLES

Allta

Twelve-seat omakase Allta will help satisfy Sydneysiders’ growing appetite for Korean food when it finally opens at Circular Quay in early March after construction delays. Allta is attached to the more casual Funda, which launched last September with DJs and prawn and scallop mousse-stuffed fried seaweed rolls.

50 Pitt Street, Sydney

Bobbie’s and Song Bird

Neil Perry is adding jazz bar Bobbie’s to his fast-growing Double Bay fiefdom, which already includes Margaret, Next Door and Baker Bleu. Bobbie’s, a collaboration with Australian-born bar tsar Linden Pride, of New York’s award-winning Dante, is expected to open in June, along with Perry’s new Asian eatery, Song Bird.

Corner of Bay and Cooper streets, Double Bay

Good Luck Restaurant Lounge

Hospitality giant Merivale is opening one of the year’s more intriguing new venues, Good Luck Restaurant Lounge, in early 2024. The Asian-hybrid restaurant, in the landmark Burns Philp & Co building in Bridge Street, is under the food direction of Mike Eggert, the chef behind Totti’s. The moniker references his 2017 pop-up, Good Luck Pinbone, in Kensington. “Pinbone leaned into a mix of Italian and Chinese cuisine, but Good Luck takes more inspiration from Tokyo. Think Totti’s but then add soy, dashi, vinegar with fresh herbs, citrus and chilli,” Eggert says.

Basement, Burns Philp & Co Building, 5–11 Bridge Street, Sydney

The Grounds Roastery

The South Eveleigh mega-venue from the team at The Grounds of Alexandria, suffered delays that pushed back its projected mid-2023 opening. Designers ACME are transforming the sprawling heritage locomotive workshop into a new roastery, bean-to-brew cafe and 200-seat restaurant. Owner Ramzey Choker is working towards a first-quarter start.

8 Locomotive Street, Eveleigh, thegrounds.com.au/the-roastery

The Joey

Hospitality veteran Rob Domjen and publican-restaurateur Ben May will unveil the fruits of a $7 million renovation of the Barrenjoey Boatshed mid-February. The old boatshed, a Palm Beach landmark since 1947, has undergone a rebuild “from the water up” and will be relaunched as The Joey. May and Domjen steered away from a beach vibe for the fitout. “It’s still coastal but more refined and grown-up,” May says. French chef Guillaume Dubois’ menu will feature lobster frites; king crab with chilli and garlic; and snapper with fresh herbs and lemon.

Governor Phillip Park, Palm Beach, barrenjoeyboatshed.com.au

Morena

In mid-March, Alejandro Saravia, the chef responsible for hit Melbourne restaurant Farmer’s Daughters, will open 180-seat Morena in Sydney’s GPO building at Martin Place, once home to Intermezzo. Morena will tap into the Peruvian chef’s Latin American roots, sweeping everywhere from Cuba and Brazil to Peru.

1 Martin Place, Sydney, morenarestaurant.com.au

Saint Peter

The relocation of Paddington fine diner Saint Peter around the corner to the Grand National Hotel is shaping up as one of the key Sydney restaurant openings of 2024. Chef and co-owner Josh Niland initially hoped it might open in late 2023, but now says, “We are looking realistically like end of May.” When finished, the project will include an opulent 45-seat restaurant, a 15-seat private dining room, a bar and a boutique hotel.

The Grand National Hotel, 161 Underwood Street, Paddington, saintpeter.com.au

White Horse Hotel

Sometime around May, we’re expecting the relaunch of Surry Hills’ White Horse Hotel. The glammed-up Crown Street landmark will have WA chef Jed Gerrard leading in the kitchen (he’s also culinary director at acclaimed Margaret River fine-diner Wills Domain), while sommelier James Audus, of Byron Bay’s Bar Heather, will steer the wine list and Micheal Chiem, whose CBD cocktail destination PS40 received The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide’s Bar of the Year gong, will helm the bar. Expect a public bar and restaurant on the ground floor, and a cocktail bar on level one. “Our brief for the venue is simple – a pub we would all like to go to,” says White Horse general manager Craig Hemmings.

381 Crown Street, Surry Hills, thewhitehorse.com.au

QUEENSLAND

BY MATT SHEA

Longwang

Michael Tassis is a coming force on the Brisbane restaurant scene – the young operator is set to open four venues in 2024. The first, in late February, is Longwang. The name has encouraged a few sniggers but refers to the Chinese deity that rules the ocean. Using that as inspiration is in-demand chef and partner Jason Margaritis – previously of Brisbane’s Same Same, Donna Chang and Spice Temple in Melbourne – who is cooking a fast-paced, seafood-leaning menu that features curries, dumplings and wontons, and lobster and mud crab from the tank. The venue will occupy a multi-level tenancy built into a once-unremarkable three-metre-wide laneway in the guts of Brisbane’s CBD.

144 Edward Street, Brisbane, longwang.com.au

Petite

In March, Happy Boy and Snack Man owners Cameron and Jordan Votan will unveil Petite, an 80-seat bar and restaurant serving a menu of French-inspired small plates. The venue is taking shape on the corner of East and Ann streets, a stone’s throw from Fortitude Valley’s flash James Street precinct. The Votans are splicing two existing tenancies and installing a large mezzanine. The brothers are the quiet achievers of Brisbane’s food scene, their venues filling each night with diners drawn by a well-pitched combination of keenly priced food and terrific small-producer wine (Snack Man won a coveted Wineslinger award in 2022). Expect Petite to do the same.

Corner of East and Ann streets, Fortitude Valley, petiterestaurant.com.au

Supernormal

The delayed Supernormal Brisbane is now a solid bet for a mid-2024 opening. This will be a slightly different beast to star chef Andrew McConnell’s enormously popular original, swapping Melbourne’s Flinders Lane for knockout views of the Brisbane River through floor-to-ceiling windows. Diners will sit across two floors, with the upper level available for private functions. For food, expect the dumplings, noodles, bao, salads and, of course, the lobster roll that made the original so renowned, but also a bunch of new dishes inspired by Queensland produce.

443 Queen Street, Brisbane, supernormal.net.au/brisbane

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

BY DANIELA FRANGOS

Aces

Adelaide is set to score a grand slam when Central Market icon Aces (once co-owned by tennis player Darren Cahill) reopens in February in a glitzy new two-storey site in Chinatown. The old-school Italian bistro, which operated for three decades, will have a New York Italian-style menu by culinary consultant Tom Tilbury (Gather, ex-Press) featuring hand-made pasta, meatballs in red sauce and lobster ravioli. And in a nod to the location, there’ll be lunchtime yum ciao – a riff on yum cha with Italian small plates instead of dim sum.

96 Gouger Street, Adelaide

Asha

After gaining national attention for his wine bar and bistro Good Gilbert, Wilson Shawyer is turning his sights to high-end dining with Asha, a 34-seat restaurant opening in a former hairdressing salon two doors down from his popular bar. The concept, which Shawyer describes as a love child of Adelaide’s beloved Afghan restaurant Parwana and Leigh Street Wine Room, will home in on North African and Middle Eastern flavours served at train carriage-style booth seating. Asha will launch in autumn, along with Americana-style sports bar Good Sport, with steak frites, burgers and big screens. They follow the January opening of diner-style Good Burger in Adelaide’s Daw Park.

135A Goodwood Road, Goodwood

La Louisiane

Hospo group the Big Easy opened this subterranean French brasserie last year as a pop-up. But next month, after a small kitchen revamp, it’s transitioning to permanence. French-born executive chef Alexis Besseau (previously at Sydney’s Restaurant Hubert) will continue to deliver classic dishes such as pâté en croute, bouillabaisse, steak frites, snails, and a signature gruyere cheeseburger.

89 King William Street, Adelaide, lalouisiane.com.au

TASMANIA

BY CALLAN BOYS

Analiese Gregory’s (yet-to-be-named) restaurant

Since departing Hobart’s trailblazing Franklin in 2019, Analiese Gregory has been busy hunting, writing, preserving, shucking and abalone diving. What the acclaimed chef hasn’t been doing, however, is cooking full-time in a professional kitchen. That’s now set to change sometime around winter, when Gregory opens a 10-seat restaurant in a (very nicely renovated) shed on her Huon Valley property. We’re expecting plenty of incredible Tasmanian produce cooked over a wood-fired stove, and no doubt a strong showing of sea urchin and wild-caught fish.

Undisclosed address, Huon Valley

VICTORIA

BY EMMA BREHENY WITH ROSLYN GRUNDY

Askal

Fans of Filipino food will have another address to frequent when this CBD restaurant opens by early autumn. Fine-dining star and Kariton Sorbetes co-owner John Rivera is behind the project, and has assembled a talented Filipino culinary team for the contemporary restaurant and bar, which will showcase regional dishes from the Philippines.

167 Exhibition Street, Melbourne

Bar Olo

Carlton’s Scopri is adding a bar next door, named after the sought-after Piedmont wine. When Bar Olo opens in February, it will offer its namesake, naturally, but also barolo chinato, a digestivo that works well in a spritz, alongside northern Italian snacks, pasta and beef carpaccio.

165 Nicholson Street, Carlton

Batard

Restaurateur Chris Lucas has a bumper year planned. His long-awaited French splash, Batard, is slated for a spring opening in Bourke Street. One of his more ambitious projects, it spans four levels with a rooftop, an oyster bar on the ground floor, and a darker, moodier space for late nights. While French food is the focus, don’t expect purist interpretations.

25 Bourke Street, Melbourne

And in June, Lucas will open an as-yet-unnamed casual restaurant next door to Hawker Hall in Windsor, serving a cuisine that “leans into a core part of the Lucas stable”, according to a spokeswoman.

100 Chapel Street, Windsor

Cafe Di Stasio

In February, Rinaldo Di Stasio will add a new art gallery above his first restaurant, Cafe Di Stasio, in St Kilda. Spazio Di Stasio will show new artwork by frequent Di Stasio collaborator Shaun Gladwell, while Cafe Di Stasio will return to business as usual for the first time since the pandemic. Next door, Bar Di Stasio will hone its offering to Neapolitan street food.

Upstairs, 31 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, distasio.com.au/st-kilda

Gigi Salon a Champagne and Hopper Joint

The Entrecote team is slowly colonising Greville Street, starting in late February with Hopper Joint, a homage to co-owner Brahman Perera’s heritage and upbringing. His mother will prepare Sri Lankan snacks known as short eats, while a changing line-up of curries will be complemented by unlimited hoppers (fermented rice pancakes) made in an open kitchen, with wall illustrations showing how to eat them with your hands.

Undisclosed address, Greville Street, Prahran

Nearby, Gigi Salon a Champagne is slated for March, styled on luxurious lobby bars of the world with a dollop of Parisian glamour and Melbourne edge. Gigi will offer 10 champagnes by the glass, late-night snacks and afternoon tea on weekends.

143 Greville Street, Prahran

Mercato Centrale

The long-awaited Italian market hall of a food-lover’s dreams will be ready for action in mid-2024. Construction is in full swing in the heritage-listed McPherson’s building in Collins Street, which will be home to 23 artisans over two levels.

546 Collins Street, Melbourne

Moon Dog Wild West

Craft brewers Moon Dog are also dreaming big with their Footscray beer hall, which, in true Moon Dog style, will look nothing like a beer hall. Opening in March on the site of the original Franco Cozzo furniture showroom, the three-level space will channel country and western style across food and design, from a mechanical bucking bull to a pianola bar to a cacti-filled rooftop bar.

54 Hopkins Street, Footscray, moondog.com.au/wild-west

Orlo

Angie Giannakodakis (Epocha) and James Klapanis (Young’s Wine Rooms, St Cloud Eating House) will open a Collingwood spot for contemporary Greek cooking in early 2024. Giannakodakis has assembled a team of people she knows and trusts, going back to her Press Club days.

44 Oxford Street, Collingwood, orlo.com.au

Silk Spoon

Lee Ho Fook’s Victor Liong is stretching his wings with a more casual, workday-dining-focused spot, opening around April in a revamped city office tower. Quick lunches, snacks with after-work drinks – plus heat-and-eat dinners from a retail section – will draw from the flavours of the Silk Road trade route between China and Europe.

500 Bourke Street, Melbourne

Tomasetti House

Later this year, Merivale hopes that its Flinders Lane project, set within Tomasetti House, will be bustling with diners on at least some of its seven levels. Executive chef Jowett Yu has been spending time in Taiwan and Hong Kong doing research for the as-yet-unnamed venues.

277-279 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Vincenzo’s and Culprit

Three weeks after opening ambitious Mornington Peninsula wine bar Colt last October, a catastrophic fire brought Matti Fallon’s dream project to a screeching halt. But undeterred, the chef and co-owner has bounced back with bigger, bolder plans. Stage 1 will be Vincenzo’s, a 45-seat wine bar with a ’70s-style coastal fitout, and snacky share food (arancini, hibachi-cooked mortadella skewers, “sophisticated” sausage rolls) opposite Mornington pier. Fallon is gunning for an early April opening.

Shop 3, 784 The Esplanade, Mornington

With that under his belt, he’ll begin stage 2, a kitchen that will service both Vincenzo’s and Culprit, the stage 3 “vastly European” fine diner inspired by Christian Puglisi’s sustainable Copenhagen restaurant, Relae, which he hopes to open before Christmas. And it’s not over yet for Colt. It will make a comeback in 18 months or so, once the fire-gutted building has been rebuilt.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

BY MAX VEENHUYZEN

De’sendent

As we publish, De’sendent – the next chapter of farm-to-table powerhouse Arimia – is (re)entering Margaret River’s dining fold. Although the setting has changed (Arimia was an off-grid property in the Wilyabrup scrub: De’sendent is a sleek 35-seat dining room and bar on the township’s main strip), chef-partner Evan Hayter’s commitment to regional produce remains steadfast. Expect to dine on hand-dived local sea urchin and shellfish, and full-blood wagyu patiently reared by Hayter and co. The cellar, meanwhile, is packed with international benchmarks and sake: a nod to Hayter’s deep interest in Japanese food culture.

Shop 3, 152 Bussell Highway, Margaret River, desendent.com

Gibney

No stranger to the pleasures of coastal dining and wining out west, the Kailis Hospitality Group (The Shorehouse, Island Market Trigg) is pushing the boat out with Gibney, an upmarket beachfront diner in the new Waterfront Cottesloe precinct due to open in April. While the space’s svelte curves, ocean vistas and dusky palette give off big Hamptons energy, the food offering will be a little more Gallic in orientation. Emerging young gun James Cole Bowen (Omnia and Lume in Melbourne; Le Rebelle and the Corner Dairy in Perth) is all about upholding brasserie traditions, so count on nicoise salad, vols au vent with Manjimup snails, and fish of the day, plus a destination bar and a strong champagne focus.

40 Marine Parade, Cottesloe, gibneycottesloe.com

The opening dates are subject to change, so check restaurant websites and Instagram accounts for the latest updates.