Best Restaurants in Australia 2026: Gourmet Traveller, Good Food Guide and Local Legends on One Map

East Melbourne · Contemporary Australian

Hugh Allen's restaurant in a former tea room in the Fitzroy Gardens serves 12 courses of Australian produce. It was the Age Good Food Guide's Restaurant of the Year 2027 and Gourmet Traveller's Best New Restaurant 2026.

Covered by Broadsheet and Gourmet Traveller

Richmond, Melbourne · Japanese omakase sushi

Koichi Minamishima's omakase sushi counter in Richmond, now in its second decade, where he cuts and serves the catch himself. It holds three hats.

Covered by The Age (Good Food), Broadsheet and Gourmet Traveller

Armadale, Melbourne · Contemporary Australian tasting menu

Clinton McIver's Armadale restaurant serves a set menu of 15-plus dishes built around native ingredients, such as coral trout with green ants. It holds three hats.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Melbourne CBD · Indian

Saavni Krishnan and her co-chef husband turned their pop-up into a pan-Indian restaurant on Punch Lane, in the former Sunda site. Gourmet Traveller gave the pair its 2026 Best New Talent award.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Collingwood, Melbourne · Lebanese, Armenian, Egyptian

Tom Sarafian's Smith Street restaurant draws on Lebanese, Armenian and Egyptian cooking, with a signature hummus topped with spiced prawn and crab. Gourmet Traveller named it Australia's 2026 Restaurant of the Year.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Gourmet Traveller

Melbourne CBD · Wine bar, wood-fired

Wine bar and restaurant with an open wood-fired kitchen led by Dave Verheul, open until midnight most nights.

Covered by The Age (Good Food), Broadsheet and Gourmet Traveller

Melbourne CBD · Cantonese

Cantonese restaurant in a Chinatown lane that has traded for more than 50 years, known for suited waiters, Peking duck pancakes and a long wine list.

Covered by The Age (Good Food), Broadsheet and Gourmet Traveller

Melbourne CBD · European

Restaurant and bar on the ground floor of 1927-built Cavendish House, open from noon until late, with a classic-meets-contemporary wine list and steaks on most tables.

Covered by The Age (Good Food), Broadsheet and Gourmet Traveller

Ripponlea, Melbourne · Contemporary Australian, native ingredients

Ben Shewry's Ripponlea restaurant serves a set menu of a dozen-plus courses built on First Nations ingredients, from emu to Kakadu plum.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Fitzroy, Melbourne · Contemporary Australian

Andrew McConnell's Gertrude Street flagship runs across three dining rooms, with dishes such as cioppino with crab toast and a floating island dessert.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Brunswick East, Melbourne · Contemporary, Chinese-Malaysian influences

Under chef Lorcan Kan, this Brunswick East restaurant cooks with wood fire, ferments and chilli, using Chinese-Malaysian traditions as a starting point.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Yarraville, Melbourne · Contemporary tasting menu

Julian Hills' tasting-menu restaurant in Yarraville makes wide use of native produce; his black garlic and salmon roe macaron has opened the meal since 2018.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Pascoe Vale South, Melbourne · Wood-fired pizza, gluten-free

Lorenzo Tron's neighbourhood pizzeria was the first in Australia to be gluten-free accredited by Coeliac Australia, per Time Out, and uses a 72-hour rested dough in a wood-fired oven. It placed 42nd on 50 Top Pizza World 2026.

Covered by Time Out Melbourne and Time Out Australia

Melbourne CBD · Contemporary Australian

Fine diner high in the Rialto tower, now led by chef Hugh Allen, with native ingredients such as kangaroo on the tasting menu and a balcony view of the city. It holds three hats.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Elsternwick, Melbourne · Neapolitan pizza and gnocchi

Pizzeria named for the 48 hours its dough takes to rise, with sites in Elsternwick and South Yarra per Time Out; it also serves gnocchi, including gluten-free versions.

Covered by Time Out Melbourne

Melbourne CBD · Contemporary all-day

One of Melbourne's first wine-bar-restaurants, per the Good Food Guide, now cooking under head chef Hannah Holleran with dishes such as tuna tartare over goat's curd.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Melbourne CBD · Italian

Gallery-like Italian dining room on Spring Street with video art by Shaun Gladwell, a long marble bar and dishes such as prawn pasta and zabaglione with brioche.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Melbourne CBD · Modern Chinese

Victor Liong's modern Chinese restaurant moved from Smith Street to a CBD laneway more than a decade into its run; dishes include prawn toast with sea urchin and sweet and sour pork with lychees.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Melbourne CBD · Spanish tapas

Spanish restaurant in Hosier Lane where the bar suits a glass and tapas, such as single anchovy croutons with smoked tomato sorbet, and longer meals run to bomba rice.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Melbourne CBD · Pan-Asian

Group-friendly Asian restaurant on Flinders Lane with an open kitchen; its New England lobster roll has been on the menu for 12 years, per the Good Food Guide.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Melbourne

La Liste places it in its Top 1000 restaurants worldwide, with a score of 75.

Melbourne

La Liste places it in its Top 1000 restaurants worldwide, with a score of 80.5.

Fitzroy, Melbourne · Croissant bakery

Kate Reid's croissant bakery, started in Elwood in 2012, now bakes in a climate-controlled glass cube inside a Fitzroy warehouse. A 2016 New York Times piece said its butter croissant may be the finest in the world, as reported by ABC News and Broadsheet.

Covered by Broadsheet, Time Out Melbourne and ABC News

Melbourne CBD · Italian espresso bar

Espresso bar serving Italian food and coffee since 1954, little changed since the 1950s with its heritage-listed neon sign, red vinyl stools and chequerboard floor, per Broadsheet.

Covered by Broadsheet, Time Out Melbourne and SBS Food

South Yarra, Melbourne · French bistro

Jean-Paul Prunetti's French bistro has traded on Toorak Road since 1986, and Broadsheet calls it one of the more important dining rooms in Melbourne.

Covered by Time Out Melbourne and Broadsheet

Melbourne CBD · Shandong dumplings

Ying Hou and her mother Meiyan Wang serve recipes from Yantai on the Shandong Peninsula in a Bourke Street arcade, with mackerel dumplings made from scratch as the signature.

Covered by Time Out Melbourne and Broadsheet

Paddington, Sydney · Seafood tasting menu

Josh and Julie Niland's seafood restaurant in Paddington's Grand National Hotel serves a 10-course tasting menu at dinner, using whole fish in dishes such as fish-bone noodles in bull-kelp broth. It holds three hats, won the Good Food Guide's Drinks List of the Year 2027 and ranked 66th on The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025 extended list.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Stanmore, Sydney · Contemporary Australian tasting menu

Dan Puskas's suburban tasting-menu restaurant, where head chef Tony Schifilliti's cooking leans on house ferments, reopened its kitchen pass to diners after a 2026 refit. The Good Food Guide named it Restaurant of the Year 2027 and kept it on three hats.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Sydney CBD · Chinese

Chinese restaurant from the team behind Pellegrino 2000, Neptune's Grotto and Clam Bar, mixing Sichuan, Cantonese and Hunan cooking; Peking duck is carved to order.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food), Time Out Sydney and Broadsheet

Barangaroo, Sydney · Italian

Alessandro Pavoni's waterside Italian restaurant at Crown Sydney mixes classics with modernist dishes, and makes pesto at the table from a marble-topped trolley.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Sydney CBD · Korean fine dining

Korean fine-dining restaurant serving an 11-course set menu built around fermentation, with a house-made non-alcoholic tea pairing.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Balmoral Beach, Sydney · Contemporary Australian

Restaurant on the sand at Balmoral Beach where chef Aaron Ward cooks dishes such as steamed mud crab and smoked duck; a bistro and a Thai restaurant share the building.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Time Out Sydney

Sydney Opera House, Sydney · Modern Australian

The restaurant inside the Sydney Opera House is now led by Rob Cockerill, who cooked beside Peter Gilmore from its 2015 opening. Gilmore-era dishes such as the pavlova remain on the prix fixe menu.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Time Out Sydney

Newtown, Sydney · Contemporary, Finnish-influenced

Finnish owner-chef Pasi Petanen's Newtown restaurant serves staples such as molasses-glazed potato bread, ox tongue rye tacos and potato dumplings in trout XO.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Chippendale, Sydney · Wood-fired contemporary

Mat Lindsay's Chippendale restaurant has cooked around a wood-fired oven since 2013, with long-running dishes such as oysters roasted in chicken fat and a salted caramel semifreddo. It holds two hats and a place in Gourmet Traveller's 2026 guide.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Balmain, Sydney · Neapolitan-style pizza

Daniel Semrani's Balmain pizzeria makes what he calls crunchy contemporary Neapolitan pizza, with a crisp, structured crust. It ranked 16th on 50 Top Pizza World 2026 and Semrani was named Pizza Maker of the Year.

Covered by Time Out Sydney and Time Out Australia

Double Bay, Sydney · Steakhouse and seafood

Neil Perry's Double Bay restaurant breaks down and dry-ages beef in house, served beside about 30 non-steak dishes such as wood-grilled John Dory. It holds two hats and is in Gourmet Traveller's 2026 guide.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Time Out Sydney

Redfern, Sydney · Greek

Greek restaurant set around a courtyard under a glass oculus, where chef Özge Kalvo cooks dishes such as grilled sardines and lamb skewers over fire, with a deep list of Greek wines.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Time Out Sydney

Paddington, Sydney · French bistro

Nik Hill and Matt Fitzgerald's upstairs French bistro on Oxford Street is known for terrine, pâté and gougères, with the wine bar L'Avant Cave below. Hill is set to represent Australia at the 2027 Bocuse d'Or, per the Good Food Guide.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Time Out Sydney

Darlinghurst, Sydney · Italian

Candlelit Darlinghurst Italian from the team behind Bessie's, the successor to Bar Vincent per Broadsheet, with dishes such as chicken under a brick and duck lasagne.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Circular Quay, Sydney · Modern Australian

Matt Moran's long-running restaurant at Circular Quay looks straight up at the Opera House sails and serves prix fixe and tasting menus cooked by Tom Gorringe and Moran. The Good Food Guide calls its souffle a house classic.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Darlinghurst, Sydney · Classic Italian

Beppi and Norma Polese opened this Darlinghurst Italian in June 1956 and their son Marc runs it today; Time Out calls it Australia's oldest continuously owned Italian restaurant. Gourmet Traveller readers voted it the 2026 Enduring Excellence award.

Covered by Time Out Sydney and Broadsheet

Surry Hills, Sydney · Wood-fire cooking

Lennox Hastie cooks every ingredient over flame or embers at this Surry Hills restaurant, which serves a six-course set menu with a long dry-aged steak as an optional add-on.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Barangaroo, Sydney · Cantonese seafood

The Cantonese seafood restaurant left its Sussex Street home in 2021 and reopened at Crown Sydney with live tanks and classics such as XO pipis and two-course Peking duck.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Bondi Beach, Sydney · Italian seafood

Italian dining room on the cliff above Bondi's ocean pool, focused on seafood such as risotto with scallop XO and chargrilled octopus caponata.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Time Out Sydney

Pyrmont, Sydney · Japanese-Italian tasting menu

Federico Zanellato's wharfside restaurant in Pyrmont serves a Japanese-Italian tasting menu, with snacks such as sea urchin gunkan topped with stracciatella.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food) and Broadsheet

Sydney CBD · Cantonese

Large Cantonese restaurant in a CBD laneway with about 240 seats, more than 70 dishes and a 40-page wine list, per Gourmet Traveller.

Covered by Gourmet Traveller and Time Out Sydney

Woolloomooloo, Sydney · Meat pies

Waterfront pie cart in Woolloomooloo that Time Out dates to 1938, known for the Tiger pie topped with mashed potato, mushy peas and gravy. It trades late into the night.

Covered by Time Out Sydney, Broadsheet and CNN Travel

Darlinghurst, Sydney · Breakfast cafe

Bill Granger's original cafe, whose scrambled eggs and avocado toast Broadsheet credits with exporting Australia's breakfast culture. Weekend queues form for the communal table.

Covered by Broadsheet and Time Out Sydney

Haymarket, Sydney · Thai

Thai restaurant group founded in 1989; its Thaitown branch on Campbell Street sits between Thai supermarkets and is known for gai yaang chicken marinated in turmeric and lemongrass.

Covered by Broadsheet and Time Out Sydney

Haymarket, Sydney · Malaysian

Malaysian restaurant in Chinatown where diners queue outside the street-facing kitchen for roti; Time Out also singles out its nasi lemak.

Covered by Broadsheet and Time Out Sydney

Adelaide, South Australia · Contemporary Australian tasting menu

Restaurant at Penfolds' Magill Estate winery at the foot of the Adelaide Hills, where chef Scott Huggins serves a tasting menu of about 10 courses. It received the only two MICHELIN stars in the guide's first Australian selection in October 2026.

Covered by ABC News

Hackney, Adelaide · Seasonal, farm to table

Alanna Sapwell-Stone's restaurant inside the heritage-listed Hackney Hotel opened in late 2025. It was Gourmet Traveller's 2026 South Australian Restaurant of the Year and received a MICHELIN star in October 2026.

Covered by Gourmet Traveller and ABC News

Adelaide, South Australia · Native Australian tasting menu

Tasting-menu restaurant in a former teahouse inside the Adelaide Botanic Garden, now led by executive chef Jamie Musgrave with a native Australian focus.

Covered by Gourmet Traveller and ABC News

Seppeltsfield, Barossa Valley · Seasonal regional tasting menu

Winery restaurant in a converted barn in the Barossa Valley; the MICHELIN Guide notes that guests walk through the kitchen on the way to the dining room.

Covered by ABC News

Norwood, Adelaide · Open-fire cooking

Jake Kellie's restaurant on The Parade in Norwood cooks over an open fire in front of counter diners; it received a MICHELIN star in October 2026.

Covered by ABC News

Birregurra, Victoria · Farm-based tasting menu

Dan Hunter and Julianne Bagnato's farmhouse restaurant, about 90 minutes from Melbourne, builds its tasting menu largely from its own gardens and has on-site suites. It holds three hats.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Gourmet Traveller

Daylesford, Victoria · Contemporary regional

Alla and the late Allan Wolf-Tasker opened Lake House on a Daylesford lakeside paddock in 1984; it now includes suites, a spa, a farm and a bakery around the restaurant.

Covered by The Age (Good Food) and Gourmet Traveller

Murwillumbah, New South Wales · Contemporary bistro

Snack bar and restaurant in an art deco building in Murwillumbah, run by Ewen Crawford and twin sisters Nikky and Danni Wilson, cooking Northern Rivers produce with ferments and preserves. It was Gourmet Traveller's 2026 NSW Restaurant of the Year.

Covered by The Sydney Morning Herald (Good Food)

Hobart, Tasmania · Contemporary

Restaurant on Hobart's Brooke Street Pier whose kitchen is led by Christian Ryan, named Gourmet Traveller's 2026 Chef of the Year for his part in Tasmania's dining scene.

Covered by Gourmet Traveller

Margaret River, Western Australia · Western Australian tasting menu

Ann Spencer and Evan Hayter's intimate, dinner-only restaurant in the Margaret River township serves a tasting menu of Western Australian produce. It was Gourmet Traveller's 2026 Western Australian Restaurant of the Year.

Covered by Gourmet Traveller

Hobart, Tasmania · Tasmanian produce, Japanese and European influences

Chef Luke Burgess serves hyper-local Tasmanian ingredients with Japanese and European influences at a shared table for 10 in a former lolly shop. It was Gourmet Traveller's 2026 Tasmanian Restaurant of the Year.

Covered by Gourmet Traveller

Kin Kin, Queensland · Wood-fired degustation

Degustation-only restaurant in the former farm shed of the 112-year-old Kin Kin Hotel in the Noosa hinterland, where Oscar Holgado cooks over wood with produce from a farm across the road.

Covered by Gourmet Traveller

Fortitude Valley, Brisbane · Wood-fired

Ben Williamson and Ryan Carlson's wood-fired restaurant in Fortitude Valley, known for potato sourdough with smoked butter and wagyu sirloin.

Covered by Gourmet Traveller

Brisbane CBD · Kaiseki-inspired tasting menu

Basement dining room in the Brisbane CBD whose tasting menu runs to more than 20 kaiseki-inspired plates, per Gourmet Traveller.

Covered by Gourmet Traveller

Cottesloe, Perth · Brasserie and grill

George Kailis's beachfront brasserie on Cottesloe's Marine Parade, where head chef James Cole Bowen cooks remakes of brasserie classics such as vitello tonnato, per Gourmet Traveller.

Covered by Gourmet Traveller

New Norfolk, Tasmania · Garden-driven set menu

Lunch-only restaurant in New Norfolk serving an eight-course set menu that opens in a working greenhouse with raw vegetables from its kitchen garden, per Gourmet Traveller.

Covered by Gourmet Traveller

Daylesford

La Liste places it in its Top 1000 restaurants worldwide, with a score of 77.5.

Beechworth

La Liste places it in its Top 1000 restaurants worldwide, with a score of 80.5.

Main Ridge

La Liste places it in its Top 1000 restaurants worldwide, with a score of 83.5.

Yallingup

La Liste places it in its Top 1000 restaurants worldwide, with a score of 80.