De'sendent
As the oldest continually running hospitality awards program in Australia, the Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Awards celebrate our country’s chefs, restaurateurs, front-of-house staff, beverage talent, food visionaries and more.
In addition to awarding Best New Talent, Best Destination Dining, Restaurant Personality of the Year, Best New Restaurant, Chef of the Year, Bar of the Year and Outstanding Contribution to Hospitality (as well as the reader-voted Enduring Excellence award) we recognise a Restaurant of the Year in every state.
From the pool of state winners, we then select Australia’s Restaurant of the Year. In 2026, these are our state Restaurants of the Year.
Jump to
- New South Wales Restaurant of the Year
- Victoria Restaurant of the Year
- Queensland Restaurant of the Year
- Western Australia Restaurant of the Year
- South Australia Restaurant of the Year
- Tasmania Restaurant of the Year
New South Wales Restaurant of the Year: Bistro Livi
Murwillumbah’s shining star hasn’t dimmed since it opened in 2022. This cosy little restaurant still champions the best produce the region has to offer such as flavour-packed salad greens from Boon Luck Farm, bouncy Stokers Siding mushrooms, and their incomparable curry leaf butter Moreton Bay bug.
The kitchen, led by Danni Wilson and Ewen Crawford, layers it all with ferments, pickles and preserves, lending a verve that farm-to-table restaurants can sometimes lack. The wine list, too, always turns up something small-scale and interesting. It’s reason enough to detour inland next time you’re in the Northern Rivers.
Victoria Restaurant of the Year: Zareh
The joy of restaurants is on full-throated display at Zareh. The music, the energetic service and the closely packed room anchored by the full-length bar all deliver a thrilling bustle, even before chef-owner Tom Sarafian’s impeccable food begins to land. When it does, it’s final confirmation that Zareh emphatically covers every base.
Thrills abound, from chicken skewers with toum and pickled green chillies to signature hummus topped with prawns and crab, and lush bastourma cured with chemen on grilled toasts with goat’s cheese, all from the wood-fired kitchen. Drinks, meanwhile, include the unmissable arak-spiked Martini. All killer, no filler.
Queensland Restaurant of the Year: The Woodshed
At the 112-year-old Kin Kin Hotel, The Woodshed shines as a regional restaurant that places you firmly in your geographic location, surrounded by rolling Sunshine Coast hills just inland from Noosa.
It isn’t chef Oscar Holgado’s first time running a standout dining experience in the countryside – and you can tell. He and the team are responsible for all elements on site, including the pub, its market garden (with resident bees, ducks and pigs) and nine charming guest rooms. The seven-course set menu uses an open fire, with pickling and curing extending the spoils of seasonal ingredients, which sing on every plate.
Western Australia Restaurant of the Year: De’sendent
Despite being named after a punk band, this soigné dining room – the sophomore effort from Ann Spencer and Evan Hayter of Arimia fame – is a masterclass in quiet polish. Designer Kerry Brooks’s stripped-back room feels special without being stuffy: ditto the engaged service under charming Joshua Down.
On the menu: drinks and dishes highlighting local producers who care as much as team de’sendent does. Dainty tartlets freight local kangaroo tartare; silky tortellini conceal a truffle-spiked Cambray Gouda custard; a plate of pumpkin all-sorts is proof that, often, greatness is the result of hard work and paying attention.
South Australia Restaurant of the Year: Esmay
Housed in the heritage-listed 1883 Hackney Hotel, Esmay opened quietly at the tail end of 2025. Chef Alanna Sapwell elevates comfort cooking with finesse in a homely space full of natural sunlight across a smattering of wooden tables below luminous chandeliers.
The Reuben-like small emu pastrami doughnut is already an iconic menu staple, while corn soup is supercharged with a tumble of hand-picked blue swimmer crab crowned by a single crab claw. Desserts riff on nostalgia; a rockmelon and Champagne spider brings playful drama, while a local-leaning wine list is a love letter to South Australia. Utterly charming and accessible to all.
Tasmania Restaurant of the Year: Scholé
Don’t visit Scholé to discuss intimate topics over dinner. Do go to experience chef Luke Burgess’s refined take on hyper-local ingredients at a shared table for 10, in a timber-lined room that was once a lolly shop. Burgess was at the forefront of the Tasmanian fine-dining scene with the now-closed Garagistes and continues to set a high standard with his take on Japanese- and European-influenced dishes.
The wine list is well curated, including clever non-alc options like a lovage and fennel brine Martini, and every element of the fit-out, food and service here is carefully considered and delivered with intent.
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