Australia’s best steaks

Bellota, Melbourne

It’s hard not to feel the love at Bellota with dishes like a classic minute steak: a well-marbled grass-fed Black Angus Scotch topped with herb butter, and served with fries and organic rocket dressed with a Champagne and mustard vinaigrette, or the benchmark vitello tonnato (a Hafner signature from Gertrude Street Enoteca) with thin slices of red wine-poached veal dressed with a superbly salty tuna, caper, anchovy, lemon juice, mayo, parmesan and Sherry vinegar sauce.

Bistro Guillaume, Perth

Lurid splashes of lime green, big harlequin floor tiles – whimsical design flourishes conjure a Champs-Élysées-in-Wonderland vibe, yet Bistro Guillaume has the substance to match its considerable style. The menu channels the bourgeois food beloved by chef Guillaume Brahimi, but mark-ups are more fine-diner than local bistro. Fortunately, salade Niçoise packing thick oblongs of rare tuna, and winning takes on steak tartare and other classics help justify the price tag. Main courses such as wagyu rib-eye for two and pan-fried whiting with peas and speck are big on both provenance and skill.

Rockpool Bar & Grill, Sydney

To call Bar & Grill a steakhouse would be an undersell. If the Art Deco grandeur of the dining room or the precise service of the Mad Men-esque wait-staff don’t clue you in, the poster-sized menu will. You’ll want to invest some dollars in the big-ticket aged steaks (wagyu, grain-fed, grass-fed), and in something storied from the 3,200-odd-bottle wine list.

Bar Alto, Brisbane

Lodged in a former powerhouse reborn as a performing arts complex, Bar Alto has sandblasted brick walls and a heritage-chic vibe, while the adjoining deck overlooking the Brisbane River is a terrific place to enjoy the subtropics. Service here is prompt – staff are used to ticketholders popping in for a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine en route to a show, but there are plenty of other diners settling in for the long haul and making the most of the ambience. Modern Italian is the ticket on the menu, and there’s no going past an 800-gram T-bone steak.

Remi De Provence, Hobart

Remi de Provence is a mirror to Remi Bancal’s story. After a stint as a sommelier in Sydney and Melbourne – witness the excellent wine advice and the encyclopedic list – he decamped to Tasmania. He developed close connections with local producers and has a family garden that provides some of the restaurant’s produce, such as the raspberries served with nougat glacé in the summer. But it’s his French heritage that defines the restaurant, which means the best way to eat here is to stay with bistro classics such as steak tartare, grilled Cape Grim steak with béarnaise sauce, or anything that has been slowly braised.

The Elbow Room, McLaren Vale

From new digs on the approach to McLaren Vale, tucked behind a 19th-century cellar door, The Elbow Room‘s generous plates take centre stage in a laid-back, modestly decorated space with views of young vines. A slab of steak with porcini butter and hand-cut chips will satisfy hearty appetites and leave you wanting more.

Bistro Dom, Adelaide

On a busy CBD street shared by several high-profile restaurants, Bistro Dom holds its own with confidence, personality and good service. The quality of the ingredients, especially the produce grown for the restaurant, lifts it a peg. An organic Woakwine steak features bone marrow on the side and a tasty salt gleaned from retired wine barrels.

Black Cow Bistro, Launceston

It might be cattle in the style of the Lascaux cave paintings that look down at you from the walls of this converted Art Deco butcher shop, but it’s grass-fed, dry-aged Tasmanian beef that’s on the plate. The service at Black Cow Bistrow is switched on and professional, while the room buzzes nightly with tourists and locals. The menu is definitively steakhouse, though there’s a soupçon of Asian influence in the side of piquant house-made kimchi and the fragrant lemongrass broth with prawn dumplings.

Eightysix, Canberra

In hip city-side Braddon, audacious Eightysix is the dining equivalent of social media. Gen Y is all over the joint. Tablet-tapping, content-uploading hipsters share their love of the sharp, minimalist fit-out. The floor crew riff happily with patrons, their banter as unfiltered as the average tweet. And everything is shared – from the inner workings of the kitchen to the tasting plates chalked on the blackboard menu. The hand-cut steak tartare moves quickly.

Prime, Sydney

This sandstone-walled, dimly lit basement under the Westin was once where mail trucks pulled into Sydney’s GPO. Now the loading bay primarily disgorges beef carcasses – MSA-certified, hormone-free, grass- and grain-fed wagyu, Black Angus and Angus-Hereford cross sirloins, rumps, rib-eyes and T-bones, variously aged and weighted. Prime is unequivocal “feed the man meat” territory, where big white plates proffer prestige-quality, accurately seared cuts, presented with set sides of potatoes and sauce.