The Hottest restaurants of all

From our Hot 50, here are the Hottest Restaurant, New Restaurant, Value, Regional, Classic, Service, Dish and Chef.

Hottest Restaurant

The Bridge Room, Sydney

Hottest Restaurant NSW

From day one, Ross Lusted’s Bridge Room has thrilled food lovers. The much-travelled Sydneysider is among the most intuitive, inventive yet grounded chefs in Australia; quiet hero to many, many folks who know and understand food. But something has happened along the way. The hushed tones of the early years’ gastro?reverence have morphed into the rollicking aural vibe of a packed restaurant really enjoying itself.

Everyone’s having fun, and it’s infectious. This newest phase comes with two side-serves: first, the food has never been more nuanced, more expertly prepared, more considered, and, yes, more delicious. A happy chef is a clever one, too. And why wouldn’t Lusted be happy? With little chest-thumping his restaurant has prospered, its reputation grown, the awards shelf grown heavy. He is the chef’s chef, with no book, no TV show and, seemingly, no ego. But to think about Lusted’s ash-roasted duck, his raw snapper with pomelo and boiled lemon cream, his quail with a master-stock glaze and foie gras, his Comte custard is to risk an indiscreet drool. Second, almost inevitably, prices have moved into the serious zone. But no restaurant in Australia deserves them more. There is quality and excellence - none of it precious - in everything that happens once you’re through that art deco door, from the mid-century furnishings to the relaxed manner of service staff, the affable sommelier and the effort that goes into providing a memorable eating experience with top-notch produce. The best restaurant in Australia so many have never heard of is now even better.

Must eat: Master-stock glazed quail with foie gras.

Please consider: Not changing.

thebridgeroom.com.au

Hottest Chef

Automata, Sydney

The new Kensington Street precinct in Chippendale launched with plenty of hype surrounding at least two of its three marquee restaurants. Ironically, for us it’s the least pumped that has stood tall among the trio. Automata finds a sweet spot somewhere between creativity, youthful energy, genuine hospitality and simply delicious food you can’t forget. Don’t let the tasting menu-only format upset your equilibrium. In the hands of our Hottest Chef, Clayton Wells, this is a journey of constant desire: his food is its own vaguely Japanese modern thing, with lots of fermented, umami-ish flavours, and lots of raw things, too. Put down that scallop in Jerusalem artichoke juice with ground pomegranate and diced roe and you’re immediately waiting for ... a piece of steamed hapuku with Dory tarama, seaweed butter and laver. Or kingfish with seaweed oil and yuzukosho creme fraiche. Seaweed is big in the Wells pantry. Followed by silken quail breast in pumpkin miso. And so on. Several visits this year proved several things:

each of Wells’ dishes is superb, with a maturity unexpected in such an edgy space; wait staff do the job with humility and warmth; and the value for money is very real.

Must eat: Yoghurt sorbet with sumac, persimmon and freeze-dried plum.

Please consider: A sharper pencil on those by-the-glass wine prices.

automata.com.au

Hottest Value

Chin Chin, Melbourne

* On a freezing Monday night in Melbourne’s CBD, signs of life can be hard to find, even in the hot restaurant hub of Flinders Lane. Except, of course, at Chin Chin, where they’re queuing in the rain, waiting to step inside the bubble, the other world of action and excitement that at five years of age continues to blitz the competition. By 8pm, the waitlist has reached 100.

What draws us back here time and again is simple: food, value, service, experience. Especially value. Where else can you find a bottle of decent pinot for $56? Where else can you see the chef (Benjamin Cooper, arguably Melbourne’s hardest working) standing at the pass night after night, sending out mod-Thai dishes of complexity and generosity that belie their silly price tag? And where staff are always to hand? Whether it’s the spanner crab omelette with Sriracha chilli and garlic; the stir-fried wagyu with jungle curry paste, heady with krachai ginger; or the lettuce-wrapped minced chicken laab gai with ground roast rice ... as the blokes at the table adjacent said, summing it all up: “You can’t go wrong, really.” No, you can’t. Owner Chris Lucas might have opened bigger restaurants in the past five years, but we don’t think he’s opened a better one.

Must eat: Wok-fried spanner crab omelette with snow pea & coriander salad, chilli & garlic sauce.

Please consider: Taking a red pen to certain elements of the wine list.

chinchinrestaurant.com.au

Hottest New Restaurant

Hubert, Sydney

In a city crowded with new restaurants, Hubert is the place you didn’t know you needed. Until you go. And then this delicious, sophisticated basement homage to supper clubs and louche bars of yesteryear, combined with up-to-the-minute takes on French classics from the kitchen (and perhaps a rorty little Beaujolais) suddenly makes more than good sense. No, this is the restaurant you always wanted; you just hadn’t realised it. Enormous fun and as hospitable as hell, Hubert is at the vanguard of a new batch of restaurants that are not about the chef. Timeless food, tweaked and done exceptionally, was always going to make people happy (thank you, chef Dan Pepperell).

Put it into a mixed-use space of multiple bars and dining with a stage, no less, throw in great staff and hosts who are all about the dining values we’d almost lost in the “foraged years”, and you have an almost burlesque dining fantasyland beneath Sydney’s prosaic Bligh Street. Eat the duck liver parfait with maple jelly; a whole, spatchcocked and roasted Murray cod a la Grenobloise; baguette with proper butter; and a dessert aptly named melon en surprise. Eat everything.

Pepperell’s take on Julia Child’s Paris is always a surprise, both reverent and inventive. Do the old-fashioned thing: send your compliments to the chef - and to the host on the way out.

Must eat: Egg yolk in a bonito jelly.

Please consider: Not having your waitstaff tell us all your dishes “are designed to share”. They’re not.

restauranthubert.com

Hottest Classic

Hottest Restaurant QLD

Wasabi Restaurant & Bar, Noosa Heads, QLD

* Lunchtime on a drizzly day, and through the glass at the end of the restaurant the sky and the river blend into a breathtaking pearl grey curtain. If it’s sunny, it’s wow in technicolour. It’s the just-right setting for a restaurant seeking perfection down to the last seri leaf. With its own farm to grow rare Japanese ingredients, water dispensed from white-charcoal bottles by welldrilled staff, an impressive wine list and the use of as much local produce as possible, Wasabi leaves little to chance in its quest to be a “unique regional dining experience”. Menus are either the seven- or nine-course chef’s choice or a somewhat convoluted a la carte, featuring dishes such as the fabulous Mooloolaba yellowfin tuna tartare topped with black flying fish roe and a delicate crop of tiny herb leaves ready to be scooped up with buckwheat crackers. Another standout is soy and Okinawa black sugar-braised lamb belly grilled over white charcoal to yield succulent, smoky meat, which is teamed with Honeysuckle Hills seri leaf, pickled radish, aged black rice vinegar and shallot dressing. For dessert, caramelised figs with shiso seed-infused icecream, ginger jelly and a dusting of dried blackberry underscore why this outpost of Japanese invention remains Noosa’s destination restaurant.

Must-eat: Soy and Okinawa black sugar-braised lamb belly.

Please consider: Simplifying the menu and offering unrestricted a la carte.

wasabisb.com

Hottest Dish

Sepia, Sydney

* Martini? Bloomingdale’s? There’s a midtown New York sophistication to Sepia - all that jazz, dark panelling, waiters in their dark ties and waistcoats, the suggestion that outside is another, crueller world. It’s the quintessential restaurant-as-haven, and slightly at odds with the extraordinary, Japan-influenced creativity of the kitchen. With just one restaurant, one focus, chef Martin Benn continues to hone what was an already intensely sharp blade. Sepia just gets better. Some dishes, or elements, don’t change. If you missed a cylinder of toasted nori, tuna, jamon cream, water chestnut and dashi jelly, you’d be miffed.

Being famous means certain signatures remain fixtures. Equally, however, you may find a new favourite in the spanner crab, wrapped cannelloni style in a sake vinegar jelly with brown butter emulsion, pea flowers and a horseradish nitro powder. Contrast - hot and cold, rich and tart, slippery and crunchy - is part of each dish’s conception. With the extraordinary warm scallop sashimi with yolk and scallop crackling - our Hottest Dish of the Year - the chef’s creativity is at a new high. This dish is the rarest of things in food, revealing both technical “wow” and real soul. Something about the soft, warm textures of raw scallop, macadamia cream and poached quail egg yolk pitched against an abstract tangle of crisp scallop “crackling”, which you smash and add to the whole, is a little bit magic. It puts Benn at the (very) pointy end of his profession in this country. We can only imagine what he and co-owner Vicki Wild will do next.

Must eat: Scallop sashimi, quail yolk, macadamia cream, scallop crackling.

Please consider: Music as glorious as the food.

sepiarestaurant.com.au

See Martin Benn prepare the Dish of the Year: go to theaustralian.com.au/twam

Hottest Service

Hottest Restaurant VIC

Dinner By Heston, Melbourne

# Clever Heston Blumenthal. First he gives us a brilliant, headline-grabbing pop-up. Then, after the Fat Duck has flown back home to Britain, he rolls in the big guns for permanent residency in the same commanding space at Crown.

Where the Duck was a little wacky - once was fun, but once was enough - Dinner by Heston is that rare thing, a restaurant born of an original concept that nonetheless doesn’t stray from the timeless precepts of elite dining and first-class hospitality. Like its London mothership, Melbourne’s Dinner has a strong narrative: historical British recipes, dating back to the 14th century, filtered through a modern muse. If you’re into food history, you’ll want to devour the menu notes accompanying

the signature Meat Fruit (chicken liver parfait encased in a faux mandarin), say, or the Rice & Flesh (with saffron and kangaroo tail), or the Salamagundy (chicken oysters with braised radish, horseradish cream, marrowbone and pickled walnuts). If not, no matter:

settle back in one of the half-circle leather booths, enjoy the perfectly pitched service from a flurry of waiters, the view into the glassed-in kitchen, the heavy-hitters’ wine list and the food from Heston’s lieutenant Ashley Palmer-Watts - sometimes surprising in its combinations, never less than highly accomplished and completely satisfying, whichever way you look at it. One of Melbourne’s best restaurants.

Must eat: Slow-cooked pork belly with spelt, lardo, baby turnip and Robert sauce (c.1820).

Please consider: Giving us slightly more historical prices as well.

dinnerbyheston.com.au

Hottest Regional Restaurant

Oakridge, Coldstream, Vic

# You can smell the money out here in the Yarra Valley as titans of industry vie for the title of best winery/restaurant, but it’s Oakridge that takes the trophy this season. A great site, killer architecture/ design, superb wine and, now, a restaurant that ticks like a metronome.

Not that there’s anything mechanical about this place. The team of Matt Stone and Jo Barrett in the kitchen gives Oakridge a rare thing: contemporary vineyard food with real soul and a serious affinity with the vines. We’re talking caraway pastries with smoked trout, creme fraiche and roe pine, or a “risotto” of toasted sunflower seed and fresh cheese that suggests a little of Stone’s eco/foraged past. Other dishes such as his outstanding dry-aged chicken with spelt and mushrooms, properly sauced and perfectly cooked, are both modern and traditional, perfect with the house wine. Ditto duck served with swedes, chestnuts and a proper ducky sauce. Fresh, yet familiar. Even desserts have the wow factor, a welcome combination of creativity and common sense. Stone and Barrett have proven themselves both mature and up to the task of matching David Bicknell’s wine; the service is terrific. Oakridge is the complete package.

Must eat: Dry-aged chicken confit leg and roasted breast, spelt porridge and pine mushrooms (in season).

Please consider: Opening more often for dinner (it’s generally a lunch-only place).

oakridgewines.com.au

Hottest Restaurant SA

Osteria Oggi, Adelaide

Call it submarine contract buoyancy, if you like, but there’s optimism in the Adelaide air and nowhere are you more likely to feel it than at the particularly ship-shape Osteria Oggi, a glorious, casual restaurant that just oozes enthusiasm, professionalism and a certain kind of New World Italian-ness you may well find infectious. Chef Andy Davies’ take on Italian food - some of it trad as can be, some tweaked to embrace on-trend techniques - has quickly found a loyal audience. The former might be glorious tripe accompanied by a tomato, chilli and oil sauce with fresh mint and finely shaved pecorino. The latter might be housemade (as is all their pasta) spaghetti alla carbonara with smoked egg yolk.

Indeed, every pasta dish here is excellent, yet the roasted dishes - such as the fish of the day with local pipis, mussels and a tomato fish broth - are the kind of failsafe classics you’d go back for repeatedly. The place is fun.

Throw in sharp waiters, and a wine list that works with the food beautifully (at reasonable prices) and you have a future classic, we reckon.

Must eat: Pasta of any sort.

Please consider: Some smaller, cheaper pasta dishes as starters.

osteriaoggi.com.au

Hottest Wine Program

The Dolphin Hotel, Sydney

Every rich bloke in Sydney needs a pub now. Matt Moran has one, Justin Hemmes several, and even Guillaume Brahimi has bought a share in the Four in Hand. But few recent hotel purchases and renos have been as electrifying as that of The Dolphin. Such has been the overhaul of this Surry Hills institution by restaurant impresario Maurice Terzini and his eastern suburbs backers that The Dolphin has gone from dive bar to diva almost overnight. And while the George Livissianis sandbagged interior design is a study in eccentric Sydney style, the menu direction of Monty Koludrovic (head chef at Icebergs) is so smart it could run its own business.

Koludrovic and Terzini have not fallen into the trap of trying too hard. Rather, they’ve taken the essence of pub food - think Roman-style pizzas, cotoletta (also known as one hell of a chicken schnitzel), pork belly with radicchio, even an ultra-luxe version of a Caesar salad - and re-imagined them, 2016 style. It’s sharp cookery that nails old-school flavour with contemporary chutzpah. Eat at the public bar, in the dining room, or, best of all, in the slinky little wine bar, with its sparkling Italy-meets-Oz list overseen by sommelier dude James Hird. Something for everyone.

Must eat: Cotoletta limone.

Please consider: What’s with the plywood banquettes in the wine room?

dolphinhotel.com.au

Hottest Restaurant Tas

Aloft, Hobart

Hobart has changed. Less parochial, more outward-looking. And restaurants such as Aloft are both the proof and the result. Take a couple of young chefs with heaps of experience outside the state and abroad, bring them home to test their theories and give them some money to set up a beautiful - loft-like - dining space in a prime position on the Derwent, and the result is a mature yet informal designer showcase for the kind of local produce the serious chef must work hard at to find. For, as the Aloft team will tell you, securing great Tasmanian produce is not as easy as it should be. That aside, the way chef/ owner Christian Ryan and chef Glenn Byrnes create Asian flavours with unusual ingredients marks Aloft’s food as its own, unique thing. Think steamed savoury custard with spanner crab; a luxe version of Vietnamese banh xeo, with marinated prawn; a yellow curry with trevalla that uses fig leaf cream instead of coconut; or an intriguing congee with fresh squash and rayu, a piquant Japanese condiment. You’ll get the sense this menu is highly responsive, both to the seasons and inconsistencies in produce availability. And that’s a good thing. And for a restaurant run by young folk the wine list and service are remarkably sensible. An exciting newcomer, full of Taswegian pride.

Must eat: The yellow curry of fish.

Please consider: More effort and insight with the music playlist.

aloftrestaurant.com

Rick Shores, Burleigh Heads, Qld

The pan-Asian, mix-it-up Australian restaurant channelling the flavours of Thailand/Vietnam/Malaysia etc, without any slavish devotion to a particular cuisine, is a bona fide Thing. Indeed, the great Australian restaurant may just be a mash-up involving diverse Asian inspiration, a certain spectrum of flavours, local produce and the imagination of a broadly skilled white Australian chef. Throw in an extraordinary location right on the beach and Rick Shores is instantly one of the most likeable restaurants to open anywhere in the past 12 months in Australia. Light, breezy, salty and professionally run, it seals the deal with genuinely delicious Thai-ish food that shows real commitment. A som tam, for example, with green apple instead of papaya and fried soft-shell crab is just one of the memorable dishes here.

Crisp-grilled salmon is a successful contrast to the fresh, juicy astringency of watermelon chunks in another salad with creamy egg net, crunchy fresh fennel, ground rice and a refined, delicious take on XO sauce. And curries, such as the yellow curry with local prawns, show all the depth and complexity of food from a kitchen that cares. Add some particularly refined contemporary desserts, smart service, a terrific wine list and ... Quelle surprise. Lucky Burleigh Heads.

Must eat: Poached rhubarb, ginger beer, black sesame, lychee sorbet.

Please consider: Maybe a little more heat in the Thai dishes.

rickshores.com.au

Franklin, Hobart

While some chefs challenge the realms of gastronomy in an attempt to drop jaws and suspend disbelief, others are busy enhancing the culinary landscape for the betterment of all within it. Franklin, with chef David Moyle in the driver’s seat, is not taking on the food gods, but has changed the perception of restaurants in the Apple Isle forever. Here, he’s placing the focus firmly on quality produce, simple yet sublime cookery, left-of-centre wines and a super casual vibe. A dinner here is fun. The chic, industrial space - Scandi furniture, polished concrete floors and concrete bar - might seem rather cold if it were not for the affable staff and giant wood-fire furnace at its core. The burning embers provide the heat source for stripped-back, respectful cooking.

Blistered broad beans revel in red miso; flames lick braised octopus tentacles partnered with fennel fronds. Pork neck, first poached in milk then roasted, blushes beneath lovage and young radishes. It’s a lesson in honesty that lets individual ingredients speak for themselves.

Must-eat: Scottish longhorn beef tartare, blackened eggplant puree, olive, watercress.

Please consider: It can get a little rowdy at times and conversations can become yelling matches.

franklinhobart.com.au

Fino Seppeltsfield, Barossa Valley, SA

In a restaurant housed in a winery - and one of our oldest wineries, at that - it seems only fitting to start the conversation by talking about the wine list. Fino’s is, of course, a strong document, ranging across New World and Old and compiled by someone clearly more focused on quality than fads. But it’s the prices on wine gal Sharon Romeo’s list that have us really excited: in contrast with so many other contemporary restaurants pitched at this level, they’re actually affordable. So order a Chablis from the other side of the world, or a GSM from down the road, and tuck in to some housemade sourdough with sumac sesame butter, and settle in - or out, weather permitting, since the raised courtyard of this magnificent 1850s bluestone building is such a pleasant place to be. Chef/ partner David Swain’s simple yet impressive locavore food lets the good times roll. Crunchy, salty whole sardines go next-level with almonds and parsley; Pangkarra chickpea hummus is vivid with radish and carrot crudites; a deep-flavoured tagine of minced Hutton Vale lamb with whole baby carrots, walnuts, cracked wheat and yoghurt has none of the cheat-sweetness that often mars dishes of this type. There’s a lovely understatement to all the food here, as if Swain is saying he’s happy to take a back seat to the produce - and give equal billing to the wine. One of Australia’s best winery restaurants.

Must eat: Whole fried sardines, verdale olives, green beans and ajo blanco.

Please consider: Getting the food out a little faster at busy times.

fino.net.au/seppeltsfield

Estelle By Scott Pickett, Northcote, Melbourne

An elegant, modern restaurant, priced accordingly. A no-choice, seven-course menu. A suburban location, far from the corporate and tourist dollars of the CBD.

Does Scott Pickett really know what risks he is taking? A dinner at this two-year-old flagship of a chef whose culinary style was shaped at London’s hallowed The Square will convince you that yes, he surely does. Between the opening salvo of four elegant snacks - smoke-cured wallaby, wasabi leaf-wrapped mussel, apple-whipped parsnip and the world’s best little potato crisp - and the sherbet-dusted lemon verbena-filled petit-four to end, the well-paced procession of plates is a tightly focused vison of contemporary Australian dining in a room that’s defiantly, definitively, Melbourne. A love of bold game - kangaroo, pheasant, venison - is tempered by delicate handling of things from the sea, perhaps lightly warmed spanner crab dotted with smoked eel and strewn with crunchy pork batons, or the clever teaming of guanciale with dory and shaved macadamia. It’s cooking that favours the technical over the tricksy, where the exuberance of some dishes on opening has settled into a quieter confidence.

Though there’s still the odd theatrical flourish - such as when one chef leaves the open kitchen to spoon dry-ice “snow” tableside over quince and honey of restrained sweetness. A modern restaurant with very solid foundations.

Must eat: Pheasant, kohlrabi, Grey Ghost mushroom.

Please consider: Wine service can err towards bill-shock upsell.

estellebysp.com

Monster, Canberra

At one table, careerists hunch over laptops; by the fireplace, folks relax with a mag on smart leather. In the periphery you’ll see guests checking into Hotel Hotel, a barista or chefs doing their thing. Some of us are actually eating and drinking. Canberra’s Monster is like a photo shoot for Monocle magazine (perhaps for a piece headlined “Morphing spaces and contemporary design freedom”). It’s a collaborative, all-day work space with food and wine.

There’s a fresh energy to Sean McConnell’s informal food at Monster that both surprises with its ideas and truly delivers on satisfaction. It’s how you get dishes such as heirloom tomato with tamarind, chilli and dried shrimp or broccoli with barley, miso and sunflower seeds from a tight list of around nine shared dishes. Or perfectly prepared then char-grilled WA octopus with fried dill, smoked paprika and almond cream.

There’s also a “bar menu” where you’ll find superb beef tartare with black crackers, toasted nori and Japanese spices, whipped avocado and sticky, toffee-like cured yolk. Almost as memorable as a dessert of rose and raspberry-poached nectarine with a barbary sauce, rose granita, candied petals, yoghurt sorbet and fairy floss.

Monster is edgy, fun and delightfully unpretentious. It’s whatever you want it to be, and as long as McConnell is steering the kitchen, that’s fine with us.

Must eat: Beef tartare.

Please consider: Diners, as a rule, deserve better waiters than coffee customers.

monsterkitchen.com.au

Bar Brose, Darlinghurst, Sydney

# Rules? Break them. That’s the philosophy at this sexy kind-of-French, kind-of-something-else wine bar/ restaurant/bolthole opened in March by chef Analiese Gregory, with support from the risque lads from nearby ACME. The boundary-pushing Gregory, schooled at some of the world’s great kitchens (Quay, The Ledbury, Le Meurice), has created a genre-defying menu that kicks out at fine dining while delivering food of such solid classical foundation you could stand up on it.

Start with textbook Comte gougere, puffy cheese pastries you tear apart by hand, followed by a series of smart, lighter dishes that are European by construction but look to Asia for design tips. You might eat raw kingfish bathed in sweet, tangy quince juice, or an airy plate of pastrami tongue dressed with shiitake slivers and soft herbs. Don’t bother with the much-written about, gimmicky “late-night sandwich” because the more substantial dishes are wondrous: “poulet au vin jaune” is airlifted out of 19th-century France into contemporary Australia via meaty shiitakes substituted for morelles, while pillowy potato gnocchi dance with slices of chewy lap cheong in a sauce of kombu butter. Wow. The occasionally offbeat wine list is strong; and if the eclectic music is too loud and the high stools not entirely comfortable for ageing backs, well, find compensation in feeling part of a scene that is irrepressibly young, bold and cool.

Must eat: Comte gougere.

Please consider: A stronger pour of wine.

We ordered full glasses, not halves.

barbrose.com.au

Hottest Restaurant WA

Wildflower, Perth

# As in Tasmania, the food of Western Australia is its own entity, from production to wild harvest to restaurant community. And with a brief to express the West via sophisticated, contemporary food, Wildflower has not only jumped out of the blocks as the great WA restaurant - a place with drama, style, service and wonderful, unique food - but joined the ranks of Australia’s elite. How is this so? Well, someone has created a sophisticated rooftop dining space, staffed it with people who know how to run a properyetfun restaurant and found a chef in Jed Gerrard who combines technical excellence with vision for what a modern cuisine based on Western ingredients might be. Lest this sound a bit pompous, let’s just say his food is surprising, clever and utterly delicious.

Examples? Raw Shark Bay saucer scallops seasoned with sesame cream, powdered fingerlime zest and bee pollen; poached marron with a burnt butter emulsion and a salad of raw meat, fingerlime and saltbush; duck from Wagin, WA, flavoured with spices and preserved muntries. The flavours are new and often inspired by native ingredients, but the textural combinations (protein/fruit/sauce, for example) are familiar and entirely successful. Gerrard’s milk and honey dessert is harmony, cohesion and technique on a plate. He is backed by a first-class floor team, reinforcing the emergence of an Australian chef of note.

Must eat: Shark Bay saucer scallops.

Please consider: If ever a restaurant deserved an all-WA wine list, this is it.

wildflowerperth.com.au

Fleet, Brunswick Heads, NSW

There’s a rare alchemy at work in this tiny restaurant that opened in a Brunswick Heads strip mall last year and gently put the sleepy seafront town on Australia’s culinary map. About 20 diners can be seated in the simple yet artfully decorated space, complete with central concrete table, locally made stools and stoneware. Chef Josh Lewis works in the kitchen at one end of the table while host and sommelier Astrid McCormack chats with an easy charm as she dispenses her range of mainly biodynamic and organic wines while a barman mixes cocktails at his station.

Diners choose a multi-course “kitchen pick” menu or individual dishes presented as lists of ingredients that may morph unexpectedly on the plate.

Smoked mullet, crispy skin, potato and dill, for instance, become a mound of lovely fishy dip studded echidna-like with potato chips, crispy fish skin and quills of dill. Or yellowfin tuna that lies raw beneath a light blanket of charryedged shavings of cured pork cheek and nasturtium capers. Dessert might be a marriage of custard apple, coconut, choko and lime. The blend of aesthetic, skill, genuine hospitality and quest-like location is irresistible. Magic.

Must eat: Yellowfin tuna, guanciale, nasturtium capers.

Please consider: Opening for lunch.

Phone: [phone]

Magill Estate, Adelaide

Sitting on the hill at Magill - glowing, modern jewel in the quite traditional Penfolds crown - the estate’s restaurant is, in a sense, the last man standing in Adelaide’s depleted ranks of special restaurants. Fortunate, then, that Magill is indeed special, its status as the city’s premium dining experience well deserved.

Being well resourced has helped Magill’s ongoing refinement, as has the stability of the team in the kitchen. Scott Huggins and Emma McCaskill launched the restaurant in its current iteration more than three years ago, and their food - illuminated by judicious dabbling with indigenous ingredients and a strong sense of textural intrigue - continues to draw on Japanese inspiration yet with a strong sense of place. Dishes using seafood (such as local oysters and crab) are true moments to shut out the outside world. The produce is of outstanding quality. Magill is commitment dining, no doubt about it, and surrendering to the extraordinary depth of the house wine collection is all part of the fun. That kind of fun doesn’t come cheap, but this is a dining room right up there among Australia’s best.

Must eat: Degustation is the only option, and it changes frequently.

Please consider: A little more whimsy in the approach wouldn’t hurt.

magillestaterestaurant.com

Quay, Sydney

Flavour of the month, that’s relatively easy: right look, right PR, a media/public hungry for novelty. Flavour of the decade? Now that’s an achievement.

Ask any serious restaurateur about the holy grail and it’s “consistency”. Always.

And that’s our way of saluting Quay’s persistent excellence over the past 10 years, all of which Peter Gilmore has been at the helm, producing inspirational food within a dining context that has become increasingly difficult in Sydney (vale Rockpool, Marque). It’s a masterclass in the craft of The Complete Restaurant. The attention to detail; the calibre of waitstaff; the wine service, backed by one of the best sommeliers in the country. It’s the support mechanism to Gilmore’s light, individual and often complex food (to wit, the combination of sweet prawns, Japanese rice, uni butter, wafers of cured egg yolk and a garnish of shredded fish maw, finished with “umami broth”). Has it changed post Bennelong, the group’s bistro at the Opera House?

Yes. The linen is thicker, the wine list deeper ... Quay has defended the high ground while around it others have fallen. We hail that effort and consistency.

Must eat: Smoked eel, young walnuts and aged black pig pancetta.

Please consider: Never changing those time-warp bathrooms.

quay.com.au

Igni, Geelong, Vic

It starts with snacks. Emu bresaola; pork cheek lardo; a kind of beef jerky; baby zucchini flowers filled with a single, grill-warmed mussel; salt and vinegar saltbush; and a just-set oyster, warmed in the shell over that same, magnificent charcoal grill. It’s a nice welcome to a concrete and felt, timber and linen dining space in the back streets of Geelong.

Chef/owner Aaron Turner’s experience at the much-missed Loam informs his fine, contemporary sense of what works in the kitchen. Igni takes the charcoal pit as its muse for degustation-only dishes:

“noodles” of raw calamari, for example, get a bisque-like sauce made with charcoaled crustacea shells. The result is truly memorable. That modern chef palate of fermented, astringent flavours is there, but in balance. Batons of fermented baby cucumber with a just-set, grilled piece of marron, all in a crustacean butter. Roasted squab in a wild plum sauce, as pretty as it is desirable. Or the party trick of King Edward potato noodles that look like spaghetti, in society garlic butter with garlic crisps. Surprise, regional focus and chef’s whim make for a debut that would be exciting anywhere. Particularly so in Geelong.

Must eat: Calamari in bisque sauce.

Please consider: Less discreet signage.

restaurantigni.com

Hottest ACT

Aubergine, Canberra

Hottest Restaurant ACT In a town where service too often comes with a side of hipster insolence, Aubergine is worthy of its reputation as Canberra’s finest, with a combination of imaginative, ever-changing dishes and knowledgeable but unpretentious service. It may be eight years since chef/ owner Ben Willis returned to his home town after a lengthy stint abroad, but he keeps things fresh, each of the offerings on his four-course $90 menu determined by what his network of farmers and artisans can provide, and what his customers are enjoying. The first course is set, with four options for each of the remainder. It’s a good format. So it might start with clean, delicate yellowfin bream and silken scallop mousseline in a buttery fish soup with rouille, spiked with the citrus zing of Buddha’s hand and the salty tang of miniature seaweed fingers.

Then dishes such as charcoal-grilled quail with braised red cabbage, pickled onion and riberries - dishes with European foundations but adventurous New World tweaks. French sommelier Cyril Thevenet’s cool-climate-focused wine pairings complete an elegant, thoughtful package, the quintessential chef’s-own small restaurant.

Must eat: Bream, scallop mousseline, fish soup, Buddha’s hand and rouille.

Please consider: Despite the recent addition of a quilted feature wall and new carpet, it can be a little noisy.

aubergine.com.au

Stokehouse Q, Brisbane

City views? Yes, there’s an impressive panorama. The river? It’s right outside, the water slapping the bank below, providing a natural rhythm section in competition with the background music.

While outlook is far from vital to a restaurant’s success, these off-menu ingredients are an important part of the charm package that is Stokehouse Q.

But the menu leaves nothing to chance, and rather than relying on the location to lure the crowd, it puts out its own siren call with quietly innovative food that is still conservative enough to be broadly appealing. Spanner crab cannelloni with white onion cream is an elegant, crowd-pleasing beginning while charred Wagyu intercostal, cipollini onions, salt bush, shaved squid and mustard seeds throws down the gauntlet to the two steak offerings. Crispy-skinned grilled Coral Coast barramundi is a treat but the more adventurous could select a special of freshwater Barcoo grunter with Moreton Bay bug, harissa, fennel, corn, and tomato and shellfish reduction. The wine list is broad and impressive and demands attention in its own right. Wait staff are serious about their work yet unpretentious; unobtrusive yet attentive.

It all adds up to an assured package at a restaurant that’s still on its game.

Must eat: Charred Wagyu intercostal, cipollini onions, salt bush, shaved squid, mustard seeds Please consider: Adding a Queensland wine to the by-the-glass list.

stokehousebrisbane.com.au

Brae, Birregurra, Vic

The wind blows in from the south, thrashes the eucalypts, shakes an old willow and skates through a rapidly maturing garden of natives surrounding the “homestead”. The sun peeks through the clouds, lighting the dining room. Brae, in all its subtle, beautifully designed glory, comes alive. It’s almost religious. In the middle of nowhere - kind of - chef Dan Hunter’s relaxed gastrotemple has shaken off foodie pilgrimage adolescence and matured into something even more special. Less about the chef, and more about the team, both in and out of the kitchen; more about the collaborative effort, the sourcing, the growing, the baking, not just the artistry on the plate. The same can be said for floor staff, now settled into the role of delivering Hunter’s vision for an off-grid, of-the-region cuisine with relaxed sophistication. And Hunter’s food has matured, too. Still clever, singular, but less about trickery, more about seeing old things new ways, like sweet baked kohlrabi in crustacean butter with scampi roe, or lobster cooked with wild mushrooms, a meat broth, farm egg yolk and seaweeds.

Even the morning-pick salad, with a vinaigrette made with beef fat, screams brilliance, testimony to the chef-asgrower method Hunter has championed.

Eating here is a trip; expensive, winecentric, stimulating but most importantly, very hospitable. An institution in gestation.

Must eat: Eggplant and saltgrass lamb with sweet onion juice.

Please consider: Beef tendon is over.

braerestaurant.com

Bennelong, Sydney

Expectation can hang like an albatross around one’s neck, but intense pressure also has a knack of bringing greatness to the surface. When the owners of Quay hopped across the harbour to the Sydney Opera House there was an overwhelming sense of obligation to put Australia on a plate. The result is far from the fashionable native food dice-roll but rather a clever, tongue-in-cheek glimpse at our culinary past with a firm eye on the future. Beneath the cavernous ribcage of our famous nuns-in-a-scrum lies a cascading space with myriad dining options, including the inspired wine and food bar Cured and Cultured. While chef Peter Gilmore has no boundaries at Quay, his approach of restraint and familiar flavours in the dining room here is giving a bigger audience access to one of our most influential culinary stars. Sweet yabby tails star on buckwheat pikelets; slow-cooked pumpkin, Bruny Island raw milk cheese and seeds make for a vegetarian’s dream; while John Dory served on the bone with umami butter competes for signature status with the rhubarb and raspberry pavlova - a playful miniature of the Opera House itself. For so many reasons, this is a hard site to get right, restaurant-wise.

But we reckon they’ve nailed it.

Must eat: Cherry jam lamington.

Please consider: It can get hot as hell. If dining in the day, the glass ceiling and walls act like a magnifying glass.

bennelong.com.au

Vasse Felix, Margaret River, WA

Oscar Wilde said consistency was the last refuge of the unimaginative. He knew nothing about restaurants. Vasse Felix has been our pick of the Down South dining rooms for many years and it continues to shine among WA’s best.

Actually, it’s better than ever under long-term chef Aaron Carr. Relaxed, with stunning vistas on the balcony, chic (but informal) in the dining room, Vasse has a bet each way with a brilliant charcuterie selection for grazers and Carr’s modern, highly imaginative a la carte selection. Accompanied by the cheapest Heytesbury chardonnay in the land, a series of light, measured and occasionally Japanesque dishes thrill with the quality of the produce and the emphasis on textural elements such as seeds and grains. The raw emu is still there, a play on tartare with anchovy, macadamia milk and fried parsnip.

Scallops with corn (kernels and puree) get crunch from a togarashi spice blend and the odd succulent. And rhubarb with rice pudding - it’s more complex than that - proves the pastry department is as clever as it is creative. The amenity and attention to detail scream “special”.

And then there’s the service, which has steadily improved in the past three years to match everything else that Vasse Felix offers.

Must eat: Rhubarb with rice pudding.

Please consider: An ongoing commitment to staff training. It’s working.

vassefelix.com.au

Muse Dining, Hunter Valley, NSW

The current suite of regional renegades championing local produce has made us rethink what Australian cuisine really means. Muse, in the heart of the Hunter, is a different proposition to most, though its influence is equally important. The slick, smart, darkened space at Hungerford Hill Winery feels more New York City than Hunter Valley, and the food has just as much swagger. Chef/ owner Troy Rhoades-Brown has formed working relationships with the small producers of the region. His homage to the Hunter relies on strong French technique that at times pays heed to Japan. Parsnip and chestnut bring a satisfying, earthy element to a chicken starter; shiso and pickled daikon add zing to Hiramasa kingfish; a roasted crown of Red Gate quail nestles in hay-baked celeriac puree; and to finish, tonka bean ice cream is an interesting foil to a dense warm orange cake. Muse proves that location needn’t foster limitations. It’s a story of regional Australia like no other.

Must eat: Milled Morpeth sweetcorn, mushroom, black garlic, yolk, truffled sheep’s milk pecorino.

Please consider: Service can get a bit too overfamiliar - including waiters swirling your wine glass for you.

musedining.com.au

Attica, Ripponlea, Melbourne

A meal at Attica now comes with the hefty handicap of expectations. There’s the wait for a table (three months, and only for the supremely organised), the cost ($250 a head, food only), and all the world-famousness that comes with a Netflix series and applause by worldfamous chefs. Ben Shewry’s earnestly evocative autobiographical menus of years past have evolved into a no-lessdelicious, ever-more-playful celebration of Australia, where it’s billy tea in the garden and kangaroo and emu and smashed avo on toast. To international eyes, the appeal is boundless; though it might only be locals who truly get how good Gazza’s Vegemite pie is. There’s whimsy throughout the well-paced and proportioned three-hour meal, starting with an onslaught of a dozen brilliant morsels and finishing with a nostalgic hat-tipping caramel square. In between, there’s cured red kangaroo with a bunya nut puree and vermouth-steeped kimchi; marron hidden under lemon-myrtlelicked pearl meat; and crispy emu “floss” served in its egg. More than a decade on, Attica runs a great race. It might not be the restaurant that stops a nation, but it’s still a thrilling proposition.

Must eat: Emu’s egg.

Please consider: The expensive wine list lacks a real local focus.

attica.com.au

Peel St, Adelaide

Goodness knows what they made of Jordan Theodoros at cooking school.

The Peel St owner and chef just can’t stick to a recipe - not when he sees the chance to bolster it with a few extra vegies, herbs or other bits and pieces, particularly those adding extra crunch or zing. As the happy bunch who’ve booked a spot for lunch and dinner will attest, however, these random combos never miss the mark. Take a look at that Thai salad of banana blossom and chicken: it’s expanded to include prawns, son-in-law egg, fried shallots, bundles of herbs and enough other ingredients to fill the rest of this review.

The same generosity elevates the crisp-skinned spatchcock with carrots, tahini and the Middle Eastern spicing that is the kitchen’s other strong suit.

No need to order sides here. Whatever you are eating, Ben McLeod’s clever drinks list has the answer and his relaxed manner clearly rubs off on other staff. Note also that you will invariably see the key players of Peel St at their posts night and day, a rarity in an era when everyone seems to be juggling multiple projects.

Must eat: Thai crisp kingfish salad, fish sauce caramel, green tomato, chilli jam - if it’s on.

Please consider: Desserts, although good, are too limited in choice.

peelst.com.au

Firedoor, Sydney

We’ve been seduced by the smoke signals of food cooked over fire. For the most part, the trend has ushered in a carnival of smoked meats with pickled treats. But this Surry Hills joint takes a very different approach to the discipline.

As guests pull up pews on communal tables fashioned from a Victorian ironbark bridge, or revel in the warm glow of the furnace in front of the kitchen, chef Lennox Hastie exercises skills acquired at Spain’s famed Asador Etxebarri. Food is neither smoked nor cooked in a wood-fire oven; rather, logs from a range of fruit and nut trees reach temperatures of 1600ºC in a furnace to produce coals on which to cook. The fire may be intense but dishes are delicate, considered and a lesson in simplicity. Slivers of guanciale add richness to charred baby cos leaves; horseradish and roast beets reel in a blushing crisp-skinned Spanish mackerel; pippies pop over charcoal before being tossed with garlic shoots and chilli in their juices. The wood is treated as an ingredient, not just as a source of heat, and it’s a dining revelation, nothing less.

Must eat: Marron, fingerlime, native herbs.

Please consider: Such simplicity means little margin for error. A lack of seasoning can let a dish down at the final hurdle.

firedoor.com.au

Lume, Melbourne

It’s still bold, it’s still brash and it’s still uncompromising. But a year after its loud and polarising arrival, now with founding chef/owner Shaun Quade solely in charge, Lume is less swagger, more substance, and has even more mind-bending tricks up its sleeve. It’s still a long, three-hour-plus journey, though there are now five- and eight-course shortcuts through the signature The Road offering, and while there’s little you’d call delicate over the 14-odd courses, there’s nothing you’d call boring. Whether cured camel or goose ham or emu prosciutto, there’s a lot of ageing going on out the back, with the ingredients then transformed into surprising - and surprisingly delightful - dishes. The cauliflower cheese course and show-stopping Maralumi cacao pod are still here, now joined by new hits: a taco of corn and crab that’s outrageously good, and a perfect piece of smoked Great Ocean duck with added sea-urchin umami.

You could say Lume’s growing up and out of its skinny jeans. It’s not just a journey through the looking glass; it’s also a fun place to eat.

Must eat: Golden goose egg.

Please consider: The continual shouts of “Yes, chef!” from the open kitchen can ruin the ambience for diners.

restaurantlume.com

Bentley, Sydney

The Bentley boys are busy. Their new (seafood) restaurant Cirrus, at Barangaroo on Sydney Harbour, is due to open soon; meanwhile there’s also a bistro (Yellow) and wine bar (Monopole) to maintain at cracking pace. Yet a casual visitor to this upscale city diner could be excused for thinking Bentley was their only gig, such is the degree of focus and conviction chef Brent Savage and sommelier Nick Hildebrandt bring to the experience. On one level it’s a suit-friendly bar and grill (charcoal grill, of course); on another it’s a place of gastronomic thrills, played out with understatement and delivered with service so assured it feels like one unbroken gesture from start (amuse of parmesan pretzel and smoked liver parfait) to finish (petits-four of salted miso caramel chocolate and honeycomb).

Snapper dashi with a smoked sardine and potato broth, or duck with pickled muntries, Comte and kohlrabi, are typical of the Savage style - refined, composed and creative, yet displaying a grown-up restraint with modish ingredients and techniques. For a CBD restaurant at this level, Bentley beats a few others in the value stakes, too - in wine as well as food.

Must eat: Pork cheek, garlic and yoghurt puree, radicchio, jamon.

Please consider: Four variations on icecream/sorbet does not a balanced dessert list make.

thebentley.com.au

Stanbuli, Enmore, Sydney

# It’s our year of living Turkishly.

Interesting, modern restaurants focusing on traditional Turkish flavours have been springing up all over the place, but none so deliciously likeable as Stanbuli. Mix a cup of Sydney inner-west cool with some modern/classic restaurant design, throw in a broadly trained chef (Ibrahim Kasif) going back to his culinary roots and a fine hospitality team, and you have a winner. Much of Kasif’s menu of raki mezesi, meze and charcoal-grilled proteins has traditional foundations, lightened up. His icli kofte, imam bayildi and herb-glazed, charcoal-grilled octopus all meet the standard. You’d say the same of jumbo quail marinated in yoghurt and red peppers, too, and even the polarising cold brains salad. Then you get superb modern hybrids such as kisir (like a tabouleh) with just-set scallop meat and sumac, or a proper French parfait made with tahini. Throw in a convivial atmosphere and good wines and it’s easy to see why this place has been such a hit.

Must eat: Chargrilled octopus.

Please consider: Seizing the opportunity to introduce Turkish wines/beverages.

stanbuli.com.au

Gauge, South Brisbane

No, it doesn’t look like a restaurant. They actually sell a lot of coffee, and it’s good coffee, too, but that’s not what you go to Gauge for. No, behind this fresh, simple facade south of the river is a kitchen doing quite amazing stuff, and Cormac Bradfield’s food continues to innovate at a surprising level. Take the combination of raw, tea-smoked beef and roasted capsicum in a kind of roulade with a toasted quinoa XO dressing; or housemade curd with cooked celeriac, onion dashi, a savoury granola and hazelnut shavings. Bradfield favours the sour/ bitter end of the flavour spectrum using ingredients such as fermented chilli, saltbush, cultured cream and seaweed to great effect. There’s always plenty of raw (or just-cooked) protein and veg, combined with smart seasonings such as dried scallop powder or native thyme.

It’s ridiculously delicious. Throw in good service, very fair prices and a quirky little wine list and you have a compelling case. If clever, inventive food with soul is your thing (and it’s a rare commodity in Brisbane), Gauge is worth your time.

Must eat: Tea-smoked raw beef.

Please consider: A deal with a local off-street carpark.

Phone: [phone]

Supernormal, Melbourne

On the page, it’s kingfish sashimi. A beef tartare. A roast cauliflower. So far, so predictably on-trend. And on the plate? It’s something unique, elevated from standard to superdish on the strength of a great notion. The little dice of dashi jelly with the kingfish; the clam mayo and crispy mustard leaf with the smoked beef tartare; the extraordinary, category-killing roast cauliflower, blackened from the oven, with white miso and furikake. It’s all what we’ve come to expect from Supernormal, a restaurant and long bar rolled into one, and to our thinking the finest of Andrew McConnell’s Melbourne ventures. And not just for the food. Three years on, it’s a more rounded, complete package than before. The room is less canteen-like, softened by floral installations and warmer tones, while the menu continues to evolve in exciting ways, assisted by head chef Perry Schagen. Bringing it all together is a service team with the sort of esprit de corps money can’t buy.

More super than normal, we think.

Must eat: White cut chicken, tofu dressing, cashew, cucumber and chilli.

Please consider: Providing cushions for those bum-numbing bar stools.

supernormal.net.au

Orana, Adelaide

When Jock Zonfrillo opened this singular little restaurant three years ago, his vision and the flavours it introduced were a revelation. Now, the story of the outsider who has shown Australians the culinary possibilities of their own backyard is well known, the Orana concept less of a surprise. Still, even after many visits, the opening barrage of a dozen or so morsels, followed by the more sedate line-up of larger plates, has its share of thrilling moments. Smoked pippies with beach succulents, luxurious marron tail and a signature dessert of set buttermilk with strawberry juice and eucalyptus oil aren’t dimmed by their familiarity, while new flavours from bush and beach continue to be added to the playbook. This time it is a campfire potato dropped in a pool of smoked pumpkin broth with egg yolk and kutjera (a bush tomato) that is the knockout, closely followed by raw porcini from the Adelaide Hills. Slivers of kangaroo with a heavy-handed spread of astringent gubinge are less successful. For a snapshot of what Zonfrillo is on about, book downstairs at Blackwood where you can order from an a la carte menu.

Must eat: Potato, smoked pumpkin, yolk and kutjera.

Please consider: With less experienced staff on the floor, the detailed explanation of each dish can become tedious.

restaurantorana.com

Lumi, Sydney

There are myriad ways a chef can buck restaurant trends, but rarely has anyone so defied prevailing expectations. While most Sydney restaurants strain to mine casual, Federico Zanellato and his band of youthful conspirators have taken a leap from the safe shores of contemporary Italian cuisine into the unknown, the unexplored, the upmarket.

The result? A seven-course Italian degustation that flirts outrageously with Japanese influences. Well, why not? Sit in this rather odd waterfront room - whose one concession to beauty is a string of lights bobbing from the ceiling - and start with avant-garde dishes such as a mouth-tingling construction of mud crab atop creamy scallop emulsion, all scattered with fingerlime jewels like fancy hundreds-and-thousands. Wow.

Follow that with a mind-bending dish of beetroot, black sesame and goat’s cheese that looks like something you’d see during a hot stone beauty treatment, but contains a punch that leaves you reeling. Then a pair of lovely pasta courses, and on it goes. There are some downers, including a wine list so pricey you leave thirsty, but perhaps that’s the price of all this experimentation.

Must eat: Beetroot with black sesame and goat’s cheese.

Please consider: Surely it’s time now to evolve the dining room beyond the cafe zone?

lumidining.com

Paper Daisy, Cabarita Beach, NSW

We went back to PD again to make sure it wasn’t all a dream. The stunning seaside location; the gorgeous-yetrelaxed dining room/bar/terrace; the friendly and knowledgeable staff; but, most of all, the wonderfulness of chef Ben Devlin’s user-friendly take on the natural food scene. No, it happened all right. It may have become even better.

Devlin’s sun-drenched, regionally focused food takes inspiration from Noma et al, but he gives it a coastal warmth, a connection with the land and his customers. It’s inventive, fresh, light and down-to-earth. House-made breads and butters (goat curd, kefir/ wattleseed and macadamia) precede treats such as macadamia-oil-poached calamari ribbons with a variety of citrus “discs” and macadamia milk, which goes close to being our dish of the year.

Or sublime, charcoal-grilled fish dressed simply with fingerlime. Or local suckling pig with parsley sauce, raw and cooked brussels sprout leaves and curry leaf/ buckwheat garnish. Nuts, seeds, cooked and raw fruits and vegetables, inventive use of herbs ... every time we reluctantly leave the table here, two impressions persist: How delicious was that? And how good do I feel? A little well-chosen and fairly priced wine helps. The location and waiters, too.

But Devlin’s food is very special.

Must eat: Calamari poached in macadamia oil.

Please consider: Cheaper rooms (the restaurant is part of the Halcyon House hotel) for those who need to sleep over.

halcyonhouse.com.au/restaurant

Templo, Hobart

Size doesn’t matter, honestly, but in the case of Templo, a very small and personal space on the fringe of Hobart’s CBD, its diminutive status does make a difference. There’s a special feel to a place that operates with one partner on the floor, the other in the kitchen, and little room for anyone else. A focus, a nimbleness, a sense of spontaneity: no printed menu, virtually no wine list (a rotating list of six, conveyed verbally) and a moveable feast on the chalkboard.

So, while one takes care of the hospitality, the other cooks. Really well.

You might say there is a faintly Spanish accent to the food, but only just.

Oz-Med, perhaps? Iberian/Italian? But it is balanced, the produce something to be proud of, and the flavours spot-on, be they house-made sourdough with Sicilian oil or local favourite Pirates Bay octopus with almond gazpacho, bitter leaves and nduja, giving the tentacle a delicious, gnarly dark porky crumble with just a hint of chilli. Templo’s “carpaccio” of beef with anchovy cream and horseradish is unforgettable; and gnochetti, made daily, reflect both skill and experience, no matter how they are sauced. Wine is eclectic and mostly Italian/Spanish. The experience reminds one that there’s something very moving about simplicity done particularly well, and with humility. A little gem.

Must eat: Beef carpaccio.

Please consider: Slightly larger premises.

Momofuku Seiobo, Sydney

A change of chef barely causes a ripple for most established venues, but Momofuku isn’t like most. The rock’n’roll swagger of Ben Greeno’s pork bao ways have rolled out the door and in its place is the fruit-driven flourish of the Caribbean. Yep, Seiobo has gone calypso and Barbados-born Paul Carmichael is causing quite a stir. For the most part the service (affable and precise) and the fit-out (dine in no man’s land or at the counter for open kitchen theatrics) remain the same. It’s the neverbeforeseen festival on the plate that sets it apart; a clever hybrid of Australian ingredients and Barbadian methods. It sounds improbable, but the proof is on the plate, and the palate. Petit plantain cups hold slivers of military snail, dotted with escabeche. Cucumber and desert lime add fresh zing to black pudding.

Small, dense dumplings made with cassava bring homeliness to sweet mud crab flesh, while aged jerk-rubbed pork chop gets quality time over binchotan charcoal. Or, also cooked over coals, your choice of marron or baby snapper, swooshed in Barbados hot sauce with muntrie and the buttery crunch of busted roti to mop it up. Who needs cutlery when licking fingers is this good?

Must eat: Snapper, hot sauce, roti.

Please consider: Desserts don’t reach the same heights.

seiobo.momofuku.com

Cafe Di Stasio, Melbourne

It’s a little sad down there in Fitzroy Street these days. The grime. The tack. The fly-by-night. But while we’ve lost affection for St Kilda’s fabled strip, Cafe di Stasio somehow keeps finding a way to enchant. The wider we cast our net, the further we extend our culinary horizons, the more powerful the timeless nature of this restaurant seems to be. A look, a mood, a culinary approach that is subtly tweaked and refined every day of the year. It could only be the product of people who simply love the culture of the restaurant. And Ronnie Di Stasio himself is that most contradictory of creatures: both at the centre of his own personality cult yet increasingly reclusive.

The restaurant’s style blends modernity and tradition in a way few manage.

Expensive, rich, generous and blissfully ignorant of trends, Di Stasio’s food is as good as ever. Maybe better. Chargrilled quail with mushrooms. Hand-made pasta. Duck with spaetzle. A serious Italian (and local) wine list. Waiters with licence to thrill. One of Australia’s great, louche dining establishments.

Must eat: Bread maltagliati with calamari and radicchio.

Please consider: Opening the new courtyard for summer.

distasio.com.au

Urbane, Brisbane

It’s an unusual recipe for success: restrict opening hours to three nights a week, offer only five or eight-course degustation menus and make the choice simply vegan or not. But with the same owners as the adjacent Euro bistro and The Laneway bar out the back, Urbane is able to operate as an elegant, part-time fine-dining enclave. Chef Alejandro Cancino is a vegan who ably demonstrates his prowess with protein, perhaps sashimi kingfish with wasabi beurre blanc or Wagyu in a juniper berry jus. His opening gambit is an array of snacks: seaweed rice crackers topped with orbs of oyster emulsion or delicate oyster mushroom broth. While some dishes have become staples, invention remains a strong suit. Squid with baba ganoush, compressed apple and eggplant powder shows off clever flavour combinations that don’t overstep into fussy. Combined with competent service and a serious attitude to wine, Urbane is unafraid of innovation but confident in its minimalist skin.

Must eat: Wagyu, greens, juniper.

Please consider: Longer opening hours.

urbanerestaurant.com

Matteo’s, Melbourne

# In our increasingly casualised sharing economy, there’s almost something subversive about offering a traditional entree, main and dessert menu, along with linen, waistcoats, and sir/madam respect. The grande dame of North Fitzroy, Matteo’s is nothing if not traditional at first blush, its upholstered, draped elegance a study in comfort. But with a new head chef little older than the restaurant, Matteo Pignatelli has reinvigorated his 22-year-old fine diner for a new decade. Melbourne-born, much-travelled Kah-wai “Buddha” Lo is cooking food so good you won’t want to share, anyway. The broad FrenchJapanese style of his predecessor has been replaced with a keener Asian focus, from the delicious “dukkha” of bonito, almond meal and seaweed sprinkled on crusty ciabatta to start, through to an Indonesian 1000-layers cake for dessert. And in between, a procession of clever ideas and winning flavours, as in a crunchy fried quail atop a sticky-sauced san choy bau; and a prawn laksa ravioli. A glorious, minimally marked-up wine list rounds out the package. Buddha’s return has made Matteo’s new - and great - again.

Must eat: General Tso’s fried quail.

Please consider: Somewhat formal service can stifle some of the fun.

matteos.com.au

Biota, Bowral, NSW

Its avant-garde approach and locavore ethics have earned it high praise, but Biota has gone through a culinary rebirth of late. In other words, chef/owner James Viles has put down the tweezers.

Gone is the tendency to garnish with edible (and mostly forgettable) flowers; in its place, greater emphasis on restraint, fundamental flavours and nourishment. The result is a triumph.

Begonia and nasturtium star in a chimichurri-style sauce atop Dory roe whipped with vegetable oil and sourdough soaked in milk; spanner crab and persimmon hide beneath creamed eggs from “our girls outside”. A glistening orange yolk, from that same chook coop, crowns charred fermented cabbage as it nestles in creamy potato turned with pork fat in a dish tersely named “yolk, cabbage, potato”. Then slices of Wagyu tri-tip cooked over coals lick up fermented garlic paste and sweet molasses and beef jus. Translucent crackers made from the starchy water from boiling potatoes adds crunch.

Local fingerlime, Pecora sheep’s milk yogurt and honey from Biota’s own bees epitomise the ethic. As the restaurant explores new boundaries - including a push to champion natural wine - it has also focused on becoming a community hub, and the bar has been converted into a classic bistro worth visiting.

Must eat: Spanner crab, persimmon, scrambled eggs.

Please consider: The natural mid-century fitout is a tad rough around the edges.

biotadining.com

Africola, Adelaide

When you’re already running one of the busiest, most-talked-about diners in town, it takes bottle to turn the whole thing upside down. Africola owner-chef Duncan Welgemoed, fortunately, is anything but timid, and the plan, he says, had always been to move focus from the backyards and shanties of his South African upbringing to Morocco, Ethiopia and the northern Maghreb culture. So what does this mean? The kitchen has expanded and the fire pit is gone. So too is the whole cow’s head, replaced instead with heads of caulies, hefty wedges of pumpkin and shrivelled eggplants, all part of a shift in emphasis from meat to give equal billing to veg, dips and the fermented flatbread known as injera. That said, a fine, brittle pastry cone filled first with stuffed eggplant, then silky liver parfait and finally trout roe is sensational; grilled octopus with Israeli couscous and bone marrow is a textural treat. The signature peri-peri chicken retains its place and beef short rib with a lingering spiciness will keep carnivores happy. The colour and clutter of the original room has been replaced with more subdued white tiles, timber and artwork that’s still a work in progress.

Must eat: Pumpkin, goat’s cheese, hay.

Please consider: Wine list is limited and favours the natural/idiosyncratic style.

africola.com.au

Long Chim, Perth

# In reality, few could fall in love with Long Chim’s “Chiang Mai Larp of Chicken”, annotated quietly on the menu with the words “northern spices and herbs”. Why? Because it is outrageously hot with whole, small, dried chillies; even wrapped in a cabbage leaf, a small bite of this delicious but incendiary minced meat salad is enough for us. But the fact that it’s here at all is something we love.

Long Chim is globetrotting chef David Thompson on his own terms. It’s far more than street food; it’s not quite Nahm in Bangkok; but Long Chim, despite the boisterous surrounds in the basement of the gorgeous State Buildings, is a very serious place to eat uncompromised Thai food. Balance - the key - is in everything. The papaya salad; the red curry of large prawns; the baked glass noodles with more prawns; even a fried rice (yes, Thais eat it too) with crab meat. Long Chim ticks like a clock, has a sense of humour and isn’t afraid to charge. It’s worth every cent.

Must eat: Chiang Mai Larp of Chicken, if only once in your life.

Please consider: Some dishes, like the prawn curry, are too pricey.

longchimperth.com

Yellow, Sydney

# When the Bentley boys turned their bistro Yellow into a vegetarian joint earlier this year, it caused heated debate in food circles; outrage, even.

Surely a menu of vegetables would beckon bankruptcy? And yet, as it turns out, Brent Savage’s vegetable-based menu at Yellow is a triumph. For the most part, operations at this converted gallery space in Potts Point are unchanged, but the direction and execution of dishes, coupled with an effervescent natural wine list, make this one of the most enjoyable eating experiences in Australia. Baby raw radishes swish through velvet fennel butter; pea mousse and pickled daikon is delightful and cauliflower and Koji is genius. A stunning vegetable broth wows when crowned by kohlrabi fashioned like a pink flower. The reborn Yellow is not beating the drum for a food lifestyle choice; it’s a credit to an underrated chef’s dedication to what emerges from the ground. Given the context, it’s an important moment in the history of our dining landscape.

Must eat: Kohlrabi, enoki mushroom and vegetable broth.

Please consider: Vegetable desserts are quite polarising.

yellowsydney.com.au

Esquire, Brisbane

As Brisbane is deluged by a wave of casual dining, Esquire, overlooking the river, has stuck to its degustation-only guns and remains a Scandi-chic temple dedicated to intriguing food. Sure, owner and executive chef Ryan Squires a few years ago opened the a la carte Esq, a more casual space near the entry, but Esquire remains dedicated to its original remit. There’s no printed menu; diners are told the price and number of courses upon arrival. A flurry of snacks arrives quickly: fermented apple juice and juniper oil, malt croissants with molasses butter, mussels with sour cream and basil powder. The main body of the degustation begins with a bang with the clever, textural interplay between a wafer of intensely flavoured air-dried beef and another raw, paper-thin slice of the highly marbled meat served simply with an orb of hollandaise. Sweet corn agnolotti in a prawn bisque and a shower of basil dust is exceptional, as is roasted duck with baby cos, garlic chips and orange gastrique. Hay cream with porcini and white chocolate butter cakes are a rich, punchy finale.

Must eat: Air-dried beef starter.

Please consider: Offering a wine with the opening “snacks” for those who have chosen the matching wines.

esquire.net.au

Lake House, Daylesford, Vic

* Long before the current crop of chefs were but an itch in their tattooist’s ink finger, there was Alla Wolf-Tasker tramping through the Daylesford hills, her basket filled with the found bounty of the land. Yes, everything old is new again, and Wolf-Tasker - a true champion of ethical, sustainable, local and seasonal - has been doing the foraging thing as a matter of principle for more than three decades. It’s the rest who have finally caught up. Lake House remains the quintessential country manor where a long lunch - or a longer dinner for those staying over - is a celebratory affair, where staff share their enthusiasm for the good life that comes with breathing clean country air. The generosity plays out in food that’s refined but not fussy, where best-inseason shines bright. Wolf-Tasker is committed to constant culinary refinement, abreast of but not rusted on to modern developments. The result is Euro-accented food that has never been better. Roasted chestnuts and meaty mushrooms snuggle with a sticky confit duck egg yolk for a vision of winter as

delightful as the mist-shrouded lake; a smoke-filled cloche reveals a trufflebuttered quail breast for a touch of modern theatricality, while a patch of sweet baby brassicas top a buttery pecorino tart of quiet achievement.

Service staff can be benchmarked against the country’s best.

Must eat: “The Apple” dessert: a delicate sphere of white chocolate that cracks open to reveal buttermilk panna cotta, caramelised apple, walnuts and praline.

Please consider: The show plates have seen better days ... in the’90s.

lakehouse.com.au

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE

Fifty restaurants that deserve an honourable mention

VIC

Tulum

Rockpool Bar & Grill

Anchovy

Luxembourg

Lau’s Family Kitchen

French Saloon

Maha

Minamishima

Saint Crispin

Oter

Amaru

NSW

Sokyo

LP’s Quality Meats

Guillaume

Lucio’s

Gowings Bar & Grill

ACME

Billy Kwong

Bodega

Ester

Mr Wong

Nel

Ormeggio

Oscillate Wildly

Pei Modern

Porteño

Sean’s Panaroma

Sixpenny

No 1 Bent Street

WA

The Shorehouse

Petition

Apple Daily

Cullen

Rockpool Bar & Grill

Amuse

Wills Domain

SA

Botanic Gardens

Hentley Farm

Ferment Asian

Press

Golden Boy

QLD

Fish House

Gerard’s

GOMA

Nu Nu

ACT

The Farmhouse Pialligo

Eightysix

TAS

Ethos

Josef Chromy

Osteria at Stefano Lubiana