NSW Good Food Guide Awards 2025 as it happened: Full list of winners, hats revealed

Thanks for following our live coverage of the Sydney Morning Herald 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).

I’m off to fetch myself a Japanese Slipper and a mini pavlova.

And let’s do it all again next Monday in Melbourne for The Age Good Food Guide Awards. See you there!

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

Download the new Good Food App and find every review from the 2025 Sydney Morning Herald 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 Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2025, featuring 500 reviews, is on sale on Tuesday for $14.95 at newsagents, supermarkets and at thestore.com.au.

The 40th anniversary edition of the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide.Credit: Good Food

Congratulations to all the winners! Read more about them all here.

• Vittoria Coffee Restaurant of the Year Saint Peter
• New Restaurant of the Year, presented by Aurum Poultry Co. Firepop
• Vittoria Coffee Regional Restaurant of the Year You Beauty, Bangalow
• Oceania Cruises Chef of the Year Paul Farag, Aalia
• Vittoria Coffee Legend Award Bill Granger
• NEW Bill Granger Trailblazer Award Baba’s Place
• NEW Cultural Change Champion Women and Revolution
• Food for Good Award, presented by Lightspeed Rice Fund
• Young Chef of the Year, presented by Smeg Luke Bourke
• Oceania Cruises Service Excellence Award Maureen Er
• Bar of the Year Double Deuce Lounge
• Drinks List of the Year Stonefruit, Tenterfield
• Sommelier of the Year Caitlin Baker
• Critics’ Pick of the Year Gursha Ethiopian
• Cafe of the Year Ona

And the Nilands are reeled back onto the stage to accept the big one: Vittoria Coffee Restaurant of the Year.

Josh Niland recalls attending his first Good Food Guide Awards 15 years ago – the Guide’s 25th anniversary – and flipping a tray of a dozen glasses of champagne in front of a who’s who of chefs (Damien Pignolet, Mark Best, Neil Perry and Kylie Kwong, to name a few). How times have changed.

Niland pays tribute to the “extraordinarily talented chefs and front of house teams” that have gone through the Saint Peter kitchen. “We’ve been fortunate to attract wonderful people.” (Including tonight’s Oceania Cruises Chef of the Year, Paul Farag.)

“We’re incredibly excited and overwhelmed and happy. We’re proud of all that this is but also very grateful.”

Josh Niland (centre) at the new Saint Peter, in Paddington’s Grand National Hotel.Credit: Jennifer Soo

Josh and Julie Niland’s relocated Saint Peter, now at Paddington’s Grand National Hotel, is the new addition to the coveted three-hat club, joining stalwarts Quay (22 years in a row, what a legacy Peter Gilmore!), Sixpenny, and Oncore by Clare Smyth.

Three-hat worthy dishes at (from left) Oncore by Clare Smyth; Quay; Saint Peter and Sixpenny.Credit: Nine

“I didn’t in my wildest dreams think that we could get to where this is. Since I was 15 I’ve genuinely wanted this, and I’m very proud,” says Josh Niland, who says his seafood-focused restaurant has grown from six staff to 46.

Ummak huriyya. Sea urchin waraq simsim. Quail skewer with molokhia and barberries. If your experience of Middle Eastern food is limited to kofta and hummus, a visit to Aalia can feel like swapping a mono speaker for seven-channel surround sound.

Congratulations to Paul Farag, whose cooking has only become stronger and more innovative at the Martin Place restaurant.

Aalia’s Paul Farag.

The crowd erupts with whoops at the words “a mobile skewer stall”... so you know this winner is sizzling hot.

The New Restaurant of the Year Award, presented by Aurum Poultry Co., goes to Firepop, a food truck that has graduated to a brick and mortar restaurant in Enmore.

“We didn’t think we had a chance,” admits Raymond Hou on stage, but the crowd’s warm reception says otherwise.

Firepop owners Alina Van and Raymond Hou.Credit: Edwina Pickles

In the meantime, let’s get to know the...