Dear Australian restaurants, never change.

Keep doing that thing you do, whether it’s ploughing regional China for inspiration, cranking the woodfired hearth and the songs of Mariah Carey, or converting a residential living room into a Turkish meyhane for one night a week. Where would we be without chefs like Simone Watts and Gerald Ong holding down the east coast, or Jacob D’Vauz and Anisha Halik leading things in the west?

The answer is: worse off. This year we received bold statements of intent from some of our most exciting young kitchen talents. We saw striking designs that challenged the idea of what a restaurant should look and feel like. And we tasted, over and over again, the produce that makes Australia such a thrilling place to dine. These places nailed the trifecta in 2025.

Barragunda Dining, Mornington Peninsula

There’s something special about eating produce just metres from where it was grown. At Barragunda Dining, the sun-drenched restaurant sits on the 400-hectare farm where you’re never more than a few paces from the soil that grew your dinner. Former Coda chef Simone Watts spent four years nurturing the garden before she finally welcomed diners to Barragunda’s 40-seat glasshouse dining room in February. Here, every dish reads like a conversation with the land: carrots sweetened in the cold winter soil, Black Angus beef from Barragunda’s own herd. It’s a restaurant that doesn’t just talk paddock-to-plate, it lives it – and invites you inside. – Stephanie Vigilante, head of social media

Bessie’s, Sydney

Of all the blockbuster restaurants that opened this year, I don’t think any came with the same level of anticipation as Bessie’s. Nathan and Sali Sasi and Morgan McGlone (aka the Goodies) set a new benchmark for Sydney wine bars with Bar Copains – what would their first capital-R restaurant do? The promise of an adjoining bar, the naming of the two venues after family matriarchs, and the Chefs Warehouse backstory were all just icing on a potentially tasty cake. 

As expected, the cake was fucking delicious. But I don’t think I was prepared for how fun it would be – standing at the bar with a frozen Marg while your table gets prepped, swiping up whipped cod roe with garlicky flatbread as Mariah Carey’s Heartbreaker blasts overhead. Big pork chops and a whole fish to share with your favourite people. This is a 360-degree dining experience I’ve repeated more than any other this year. – Dan Cunningham, features editor (food and drink)

Corner 75, Sydney

As a lifelong Randwick local, the area’s Hungarian institution Corner 75 was the restaurant I’d been to more times than I can remember. When I learned it would be taken over and reinvigorated under the auspices of the Baba’s Place and Sixpenny teams, I was almost rooting against it. I wanted these interlopers, with their delicious cooking and stellar service, to leave Randwick alone. Vocal locals and Corner 75 regulars did too. But then, it opened. And well – you just can’t deny it. Those modern takes on menu favourites such as langos and goulash are too good not to win you over. And the schnitzel – a beautiful ripple of craggy curves that’s simultaneously light and fluffy – is as magnificent as ever. Corner 75’s reopening – and reassessment – is rightfully one of the restaurant stories of the year. I loved the original, but I can’t get enough of the cover. – Callum McDermott, Hot List editor

Grandfathers, Sydney

I wonder what my grandfathers would think of Grandfathers?

They’d raise bushy eyebrows at the restaurant’s almond-encrusted prawn toast, which the red-jacketed staff suggest ordering before your arse even hits the leather. They’d be deterred by technicolour dim sum (too slippery!) and reel at the sight of red emperor bobbing in a fragrant Sichuan broth (too fragrant!). How would they read the bible of a wine list with little more than the ethereal blue glow of fish tanks to light the situation? My god – the price. Isn’t Chinese food supposed to be cheap?

The Pellegrino 2000 team’s loving tribute to Chinese food would probably be lost on my grandfathers, who existed on a frugal diet of meat and two veg their entire lives – and were very much a product of their time. Truly though, Grandfathers is everything that’s great about Sydney dining in 2025: fearlessly creative, theatrical without being overblown, and open far later than we’re used to. But if there’s one thing that would bring my grandfathers to the table, it’s surely apple pie – even one as wildly inventive as this. – Dan Cunningham, features editor (food and drink) 

Magnolia BBQ, Perth

Jacob D’Vauz and Anisha Halik know how to draw a crowd. Last year, the chef couple had diners flocking to Doubleview Bowls Club for their Special Delivery pop-up. This year, they stepped up with Magnolia BBQ, an 80-person restaurant that runs twice a week out of Modus Coffee in Vic Park, powered by a custom smokeless woodfired Zesti oven.

Though the menu draws from the Malay Archipelago and is threaded with Halik’s Christmas Island background, Magnolia isn’t bound by tradition. Instead, every dish is filtered through the pair’s own memories, plus decades of combined hospitality experience, and family know-how (sambal is made by their aunties each week). The results: Abrolhos Island scallop crudo with green mango, sambal hijau and kerupuk (a deep-fried fish cracker). Or Fremantle swordfish chops, brushed with sambal and served bone-in, resting in a broth made from Stakehill Farm tomatoes. – Lucy Bell Bird (national assistant editor) and Madeline Wallman (contributor)

Marlowe, Brisbane

Though Marlowe is one of our favourite new restaurants of 2025, it would feel just as well-placed on a round-up of superb restaurants from 1965. The fit-out by JAR Office is intentional in that regard, which gives the feeling of stepping back in time – and into someone’s home. In the same way the fit-out embraces the heritage charm of the space (a block of flats built in 1938), the menu at Fanda Group’s latest feels equally old-school. Head chef Ollie Hansford hit the books (Ross Dobson’s The Lost Recipes, for example) and created a menu that draws inspiration from ’50s and ’60s dining. Highlights, such as cheddar scones with chicken pâté and woodfired coral trout Wellington, are matched with a wine list by Peter Marchant that’s entirely Australian (save for the champagne). – Lucy Bell Bird (national assistant editor) and Elliot Baker (contributor) 

Mini Lokanta, Adelaide

It might seem hard to believe that one of Adelaide’s best new restaurant openings comes from two untrained chefs, who both have day jobs and only work in hospitality one day each week – but it does. Enver Tuğrul Özbecene and Gökçe Özbecene’s 10-seater Turkish restaurant Mini Lokanta feels like an intimate dinner in someone’s home, but it’s no facsimile of approachable homey charm. The couple moved to Australia from Turkey four years ago, and set up Mini Lokanta in the front room of their home with the goal of sharing the flavours and customs of their homeland. 

To that end, the eight-course menu is a love letter to the slow dining approach of meyhanes (Turkish taverns), starting with cold appetisers like girit ezmesi – a mix of aged feta, fresh herbs and pistachios – followed by manti, sarma, Turkish bread and more. Since opening in March, the Özbecenes have welcomed many of Adelaide’s top chefs, a whole host of fooderati, and the Masterchef cast into their home. Not bad for a restaurant only open on Saturday nights. – Lucy Bell Bird (national assistant editor) and Katie Spain (contributor)

Sogumm, Melbourne

Melbourne’s Korean food scene gets more layered and interesting every year. With Sogumm, chef-owners and husband-and-wife team Changhoon “Kimmy” Kim and Suhyun Kim have brought something new again. The chef couple have worked in some of the world’s top kitchens: Changhoon at Aria, and Suhyun at Gimlet, Plaza Athenee in Paris and two-Michelin-starred Restaurant Andre in Singapore. But their time learning under Buddhist nun and fermentation expert Jeong Kwan – dubbed “the philosopher chef” by the New York Times – is the most influential on their casual restaurant. Following temple rules, there are no alliums in the vegetarian dishes at Sogumm. Each dish is centred on one of four traditional Korean seasonings. Vegan bibimbap is dressed in soy, a seafood noodle salad uses gochujang, a warming soup is finished with salt, and the slow-baked Jerusalem artichoke is glazed with doenjang. – Audrey Payne, Melbourne food and drink editor

The Fifty Six, Brisbane

Capping off Dap & Co’s stunning transformation of the heritage-listed Naldham House, The Fifty Six is everything you could possibly want from a new restaurant opening. The biggest trump card, though, is Singapore-born chef Gerald Ong, whose resume includes Chairman & Yip, the Canberra outpost of Hong Kong’s Chairman restaurant, as well as Sydney restaurants Porteno and Automata. Alongside Stan’s and Central, The Fifty Six has proved Brisbane has an insatiable appetite for Cantonese Hong Kong-inspired venues. Ong says it’s a natural fit, with Queensland and Hong Kong sharing similar climates. He approaches Cantonese cuisine the same way he would French cuisine: with a focus on elegance and quality of ingredients. Balanced, harmonious dishes include prawn toast, crispy lemon chicken, sticky cumin lamb ribs, Queensland lobster pao fan, dim sum and roast duck. – Lucy Bell Bird (national assistant editor) and Kit Kriewaldt (subeditor)

Yiaga, Melbourne

What luck that Hugh Allen, taking a walk through Fitzroy Gardens six years ago, passed the site that would become Yiaga and committed to opening his first restaurant there. The 30-year-old chef was shrewd enough to know that selecting an architect – John Wardle – who’d never designed a restaurant before would conjure up a rare space. The fine diner’s interior, clad in 13,000 ochre tiles, is just one extraordinary element in a playbook of many. 

The menu, by Allen and head chef Michael McCauley, artfully weaves its way through Australian ingredients taken to new and surprising places. A bite-sized mille-feuille made with dehydrated kale and cabbage, and layers of silky herb emulsion, is emblematic. Other winners: a silky coconut cream topped with caviar and lime zest; sweet curls of confit squid, cured in white miso, and finished with Thai basil and desert lime; and the Banksia Pop, a dessert worthy of a plinth at an art gallery. Allen’s vision for Yiaga was an audacious one. He had the chops to execute it. – Katya Wachtel, editorial director

Zareh, Melbourne

Did Zareh really only open in August? Tom Sarafian’s debut restaurant is so ingrained in the fabric of Melbourne’s dining scene, it feels like it’s been around for at least a decade. Post-Covid, Sarafian became known as Melbourne’s pop-up king. But now he permanently reigns over the kind of kitchen he’s always deserved. Sarafian draws influence from his years of experience both here and in London, as well as his Armenian background; life and business partner Jinane Bou-Assi’s Lebanese heritage; and the pair’s travels to Glendale in Los Angeles (where there’s a large Armenian diaspora) and the Arab world. The chef expertly plates toum-covered chicken kebabs and tops hummus with king prawns and spanner crabs as Armenian and Lebanese vinyl plays through the custom Pitt & Giblin speakers. The whole city was waiting for Zareh. Sarafian and Bou-Assi did not disappoint. – Audrey Payne, Melbourne food and drink editor