Restaurant Guide

With dishes just as colourful as decor, Arc Dining is an experience for the senses.

Since opening Anchovy in 2015, owner-chef Thi Le has explored the Vietnamese food of her heritage through a contemporary lens.

A crisp Negroni Blanc on the patio is a refreshing way to ease into the four-course offering at this Barossa favourite – especially when the weather is fine.

Changing cuisine every four months could lead to gimmickry. Not so at Atlas where Charlie Carrington's approach – a focus on essence over tradition – keeps things fresh and exciting.

Chef-owner Ben Willis continues to refine a menu that effortlessly drifts with the seasons and crosses geographical boundaries.

Clayton Wells pulls it off time and time again.

The new kid in town has made quite the impression.

Brae is Dan Hunter’s love letter to the region, written with precise, original cooking.

Nowhere else captures Canberra's special blend of the parochial and the worldly like Rochford.

There's a generosity of spirit at this warehouse, a carefully restored 1898 heritage-listed building where diners sit at long tables overlooking the open kitchen.

James Viles takes Mother Nature seriously. At Biota Dining, the kitchen and the environment are closely connected, with a focus on locally gathered and grown produce.

The go-to joint for gonzo libations and none-too-serious snackage.

Is this the best place in Australia to drink wine?

The distance from garden to the plate has never been shorter than at this white pavilion in the centre of Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

After more than a decade, Bar Lourinhã's star power shows no signs of waning.

This large gorgeous restaurant atop the former Newport Arms owes more than a dash of its sunny elegance and Med-luxe vibe to Merivale's Paddington flagship.

A mighty tasty mash-up of Sydney’s obsession with café culture and authentic Thai eats.

At Barangaroo, a dining district rife with "concepts", Cirrus stands out as a real restaurant.

With retro style and riffs on classics, Capitano, from the team behind Bar Liberty, isn’t your typical red-sauce joint.

The coastal view from the dining room of Angelsea’s Surf Lifesaving Club is surely one of Victoria’s best.

When a restaurant's very name references diversions, you'd expect it to eschew the straight and narrow.

Don't come to Di Stasio Città to count your pennies. Here, hedonism is creed, and indulgence is the name of the game.

As reviewed for our 2020 Restaurant Guide.

Whimsy dances with humour in inventive dishes that are consistently delicious.

Chef Philip Johnson and team ensure the whole production looks like an effortless affair.

Embla: it can get emotional. There's the despair of seeing all seats full, the impatience of watching diners linger over the last cheeky sip of rosado… and then the elation of being seated in the throng.

Double-clothed tables, a capacious, sumptuously appointed room, discreetly eager staff in crisp uniforms - welcome to Est.

Here's the game plan: book early for a late lunch on a Saturday or Sunday. Don't drive. Call for something interesting and natural from the wine list.

A string of bright young things may have recently arrived on the southside dining scene, but the prized tables at France-Soir are as hotly contested as ever.

It's impossible not to feel looked after at Fleet, an 18-seater in Brunswick Heads that really keeps things local.

Landing a table can be very challenging, but once you're in it's a life of ease.

Even when the chef-owners of this European restaurant get creative, the flavours stay true and ingredient-focused.

You're here to watch chef Lennox Hastie work fireside, feeding logs into the oven and banking up white-hot coals under the grills.

It's the professionalism of the service, honed over a lifetime, and the opulent setting of 85-year-old murals and chandeliers, that makes Florentino something special.

Behold the retro-glam dining room: linen-dressed tables, thick carpet, and crack black-and-white-clad service team.

A joyous place where a diner feels blessed to be part of the dance rather than a mere spectator.

Think of Fratelli Paradiso as a stage, its diners and staff all actors working together daily to produce a play dedicated to the joys of a peculiarly inner-city brand of Sydney-Italianness.

Golden Century isn't fine dining and it’s hard to do the menu justice without at least six people - but for what it is, there is no peer in Sydney.

There’s an enchanting backdrop of undulating vineyards and a carefree vibe at Coriole winery’s alfresco dining space.

This café-by-day and restaurant-by-night has become the yardstick for ambitious Brisbane dining.

Adam Wolfers and the team subvert Middle Eastern cuisine, hijacking typical ingredients to create share plates as complex and surprising as the richly detailed fit-out of this must-visit James Street eatery.

Just like the artworks in the gallery where this light-filled, minimalist restaurant resides in, chef Josue Lopez's food is designed to make patrons think.

There's plenty to like at this Brisbane off-shoot.

Take a journey along dusty Barossa back roads to reach this restored stable, transformed by the addition of an elegant glass-walled dining pavilion overlooking vines and gum trees.

Finding one of Victoria’s best restaurants in Geelong CBD’s backblocks would’ve once been in the realm of fantasy, but Aaron Turner has made it fact.

It's all in the name at this Brisbane bolthole, where the chef-owners serve up plates that bring nothing by a smile to your face.

Kazuki’s is a beautiful oddity: a Japanese restaurant that guts expectations of the oeuvre like a fish.

The glass walls and modernist box layout means every vantage eyes the marina.

The menu at Liberté includes nods to owner Amy Hamilton’s French training (comforting steak frites, chicken liver parfait), much of the cooking is notable for its effortless use of Vietnamese flavours.

It's the first solo venture for Alex Munoz Labart, the former head chef of Monopole and Cirrus Dining.

Opening chef Joel Valvasori-Pereza might have left the building, but the party rages on at this CBD bunker.

O Tama Carey's brand of Sri Lankan food is all killer, no filler.

A meal at Lake House is a sonnet to the good life in edible form.

Can anything be less Spanish than 6pm dinner? The popularity of this tapas bar means that may be the only sitting you get unless you're a forward-planning booker.

Paul Carmichael keeps refining his sound at the Sydney outpost of David Chang's restaurant empire.

You'll find no burgers underground, but you will find a menu built on those same principles.

There's a lot to love about the the culinary arm of the Maxwell Winery, located in the heart of the SA's McLaren Vale.

It could be downtown Tokyo instead of backstreet Richmond. Despite its Antipodean location, Minamishima sticks to the sushi-temple script by playing hard to get in.

It could be one of the darkest dining rooms in town, but nine years in the ideas on the plate and in the glass at Monopole are brighter and sharper than ever.

Jarrahdale is an hour by car from Perth – far enough to feel like you’re escaping the city, but still well within day-trip territory.

In a world of paint-by-numbers restaurants, Nu Nu is a welcome one-off.

You don't have to venture far from Adelaide's CBD to experience chef Will Doak's lively menu.

It’s a winery restaurant with all the trappings: vineyard views, a tasting room with spittoons, that “escaped the city” feeling.

The long stretch of Military Road leads to many places: The Orpheum, Taronga Zoo, and, via the Spit Bridge - Italy.

It was meant to be a more discreet take on the Sydney original, but Otto Brisbane's fourth-floor mezzanine digs are nevertheless a jaw-dropper.

Local vegetables and seafood play a starring role at this Northern Rivers built, quite literally, by hand by chef-owner Ben Devlin.

Pilu is a lesson in how a Sardinian outpost came to define beachside dining for Sydney.

A meathouse that's a vegetarian's paradise? Tell your plant-based friends.

Nothing is a problem at Peel Street. Everything here exudes ease, thanks to attentive staff, breezy interiors, local wines and a smooth soundtrack.

This much-decorated restaurant in Victoria's north-east has been earning interest and acclaim since it opened more than a decade ago.

A former garage in North Fremantle seems an unlikely destination for some of the state's boldest Middle Eastern and Levantine flavours.

How does a kitchen compete with the finest ocean views on Australia’s east coast? An impressive raft of inventive, meticulously finessed share dishes, that's how.

It's a new chapter at this iconic Byron Bay hotel.

The complex dishes display contemporary French flair.

Rockpool Bar & Grill delivers the glamour via its thrilling Deco-era dining room, all soaring pillars, mood lighting and lofty ceilings.

Part of Andrew McConnell's empire, this is the younger, buzzier, carefree sibling to the grown-up Cumulus Inc further up Flinders Lane.

The bubblegum-pink shopfront of the former Marie-Louise salon is the unlikely façade of this smart two-storey Turkish eatery.

Chef Josh Niland secures his place among the nation’s finest seafood cooks.

Lunch at Sean's couldn't be more Bondi if a surf lifesaver popped in to say hi to her mates mid-service.

A Korean and Japanese barbecue fusion with a side of cheeky Aussie attitude.

Sixpenny might be deep into residential territory, set in two rooms of a corner cottage, but there's nothing suburban about the dining experience.

The discreet entry belies the popularity of this Suzie Wong inspired-China diner, which continues to attract a suited CBD lunching clientele.

When the bi-fold doors are retracted at this smartly appointed riverside restaurant, there isn't a more picturesque place in Brisbane to enjoy lunch.

A talented chef makes a convincing case that native Australian ingredients have a place within Southeast Asian tradition.

Fresh on the Bondi scene, this Mediterranean-style restaurant features a menu driven by wood fire, Italian snacks, retro classics and fun times.

You can eat à la carte at Templo, but going your own way in a 20-seat restaurant with a round communal table at its heart might be missing the point.

Make an early booking at Tulum - a small, beautiful modern Turkish restaurant in the unlikely surrounds of grungy Balaclava.

Yes, The Agrarian Kitchen cooking school has a restaurant spin-off - and you can find it in the Instagram-friendly surrounds of the former New Norfolk asylum.

The appeal's partly due to its hidden laneway address, ex-nightclub digs and the picture windows over plane trees and the MCG.

When the world is devolving into a dystopian nightmare it's good to know Tipo 00 is there ready with a soul-warming plate of pasta.

There's not a share plate in sight at this unassuming neighbourhood-style eatery. But you still may need to fend off forks when entrées land.

There's nothing else like Tetsuya's in Sydney. It's an oasis of hush in a Japanese-styled building hidden in a gated compound right in the CBD.

Set between the CBD and university, Temporada bridges culinary and social divides.

Vue de Monde impresses not just with the views that come with its lofty 55th-floor perch, but for holding its position in Melbourne's premier restaurant league for so long.

This rooftop fine-diner crowning Perth's majestic Como The Treasury puts the special into any occasion.

Visiting Wasabi – which is cantilevered over the Noosa River – is almost like entering the mythical Japanese floating world of Ukiyo.

Rolling vineyards before you. A thoroughly modern cellar door around you. In your glass, wine from one of the region’s rising stars: life in this scenic corner of Margaret River ain’t half bad.

The 50-seat cave à manger specialises in minimal-intervention wines chosen by chef-owner Sam Winfield.

XO moves to its own beat, the kitchen riffing on modern pan-Asian classics, the staff informal and enthusiastic.

Welcome to the high temple of the vegetable – roots, shoots, leaves, crumbs and dust conjured to artful, textural and sustaining creations.