Raise a glass to the winners of Gourmet Traveller’s 2017 Restaurant Guide Awards, sponsored by Vittoria Coffee and Santa Vittoria. Across Australia, restaurants are plating up and creating excellent dining experiences with attentive service, inventive menus and carefully curated wine lists. These are the best of the best – make a reservation and try them out yourselves.
Wine List of the Year 2017
Wine List of the Year 2017
Andy Tyson and the guys at Hubert don’t just want you to enjoy great booze, they also want you to have an enormous amount of fun doing it. From the vibrant illustrations to the chatty Q&A profiles of the staff scattered throughout, this list is imbued with love. There’s something for everyone in its 40 pages, too, from great-value young local pinot to indulgent old claret; from a good selection of half-bottles (“for those dining alone”) to magnums (“for the greedy dining alone”) and everything in between. An absolute joy.
Photography: Andy Tyson at Hubert, by Scott Hawkins
Bar of the year
Bar of the year
A year ago, this slip of an alley off Leigh Street was a bin lane. Now it contains a pair of narrow timber cabins with steep pitched roofs, separated by a neat courtyard garden. There’s no signage, but push past the timber door and you’ll find a look that’s perfectly cool offset by a sunny attitude on the floor. Manager Marshall King keeps Pink Saloon’s tight drinks list filled with savvy beer, Bourbon and wine selections, and shakes a mean cocktail. Stop for a bite from chef Matthew Standen’s wood-fired oven; he also does perhaps the best chips in the land.
Sommelier of the year
Sommelier of the year
Dan Sharp, Sixpenny, Sydney
Noma Australia got plenty of bouquets and brickbats alike for serving no red wines in its wine pairing, but that stuff is old news for Dan Sharp. With a background heading the wine teams at Est and Felix before joining Sixpenny, his grounding in the classics gives his flights of fancy real assurance. A tasting with Sharp on the pours will dart from cult New Zealand natural producers to the Loire to the textbook wines of, say, Alois Kracher without ever failing to flatter the food (or the diner).
Photography: Dan Sharp, by Phillip Castleton
Regional restaurant of the year
Regional restaurant of the year
It may seem odd to consider a restaurant in a gritty urban location free of trees and views regional, but Igni’s focus on produce from the fertile farmlands, bays and ocean of its Geelong home make it not only regional but one of the best in show. Chef Aaron Turner grew up around here and knows what’s growing when and where, and transforms that seasonal bounty, often using flame and smoke, into exciting menus. The front of house team is as savvy and excited about the local stuff (wine included) as the chef.
Photography: Team Igni, by Julian Kingma
Maître d’ of the Year
Maître d’ of the Year
Andrew Joy, Marion, Melbourne
There’s plenty to be pleased about at Andrew McConnell’s Fitzroy wine bar but the service, led by Andrew Joy, is one of its chief pleasures. Joy has been part of the McConnell stable for some time, first at Three, One, Two, then Cumulus Inc, Cumulus Up, and now Marion. His relaxed, welcoming presence and tremendous wine knowledge and communication skills hit the holy grail of any maître d’: the ability to put you at ease. It’s an important skill to have in a place that’s often swamped. Coupled with a dry sense of humour it makes Mr Joy one of Melbourne’s service greats.
Photography: Andew Joy by Julian Kingma
Outstanding contribution to hospitality
Outstanding contribution to hospitality
Bruce Pascoe, Australian Indigenous writer
Photography: Jessica Reftel Evans and Martin Reftel
New restaurant of the year
New restaurant of the year
What do bartenders know about restaurants? Quite a lot, if the bartenders happen to be Jason Scott and Anton Forte, the smooth operators behind Shady Pines, The Baxter Inn and Frankie’s. Any notion that their first restaurant venture would be in any way slapdash was immediately dispelled by the layers and layers of quality underpinning every aspect of the Hubert experience. Clever, tasty Frenchish food, a killer wine list, savvy service and a Rat Pack buzz combine seamlessly to make for a restaurant like no other.
Photography: From left: Jason Scott, Andy Tyson, Stefan Forte, Anton Forte, Dan Pepperell, by Scott Hawkins
Best new talent
Best new talent
Thi Le, Anchovy, Melbourne
After working for Christine Manfield, Andrew McConnell and Dave Verheul, Thi Le attracted immediate attention when she opened her own restaurant in Melbourne. Here’s the thing: Anchovy just keeps getting better and better, presenting flavours that are born of Le’s Vietnamese heritage, her broader interest in South East Asian cuisines and her raw talent. Menu stalwarts like her celebrated blood sausage now have to make room for the likes of stracciatella teamed with spring onion, apples and roti. Exciting and unique stuff.
Photography: Thi Le by Julian Kingma
Peer-voted chef of the year
Peer-voted chef of the year
Ben Shewry, Attica, Melbourne
Chef of the Year is a peer-voted award we institited in 2012, an award for the best, voted anonymously by the best. We ask the chefs from last year’s top 100 to name the chef they most respect working in Australia. We don’t tell them who they can and can’t vote for, we simply tally the votes, which this year gives us the new Gourmet Traveller Chef of the Year. Attica’s Ben Shewry.
Photography: Marcel Aucar
Restaurant of the Year
Restaurant of the Year
It’s been a big year for team Seiobo, with a new chef, a new direction and a whole new flavour. We’re used to the idea that we should expect the unexpected at Momofuku, but even so, I don’t think anyof us guessed this time last year that it would be the flavours of the Caribbean itself would be a thrill – finding it in Pyrmont is a revelation.
Photography: Chef Paul Carmichael by Andrew Finlayson
2017 Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide
2017 Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide
Pick up the September issue of GT now for more on our award winners and for your own copy of the 2017 Gourmet Traveller Australian Restaurant Guide, sponsored by Vittoria Coffee and Santa Vittoria, on sale now.
