Last year we named our first “class of the year” awards, with chefs including Tom Sarafian being crowned the Pop-Up Prince and Ahana Dutt named the Next Big Thing. From the Comeback King to the Rebel With a Cause, here’s your Class of 2024.

From pop-ups, to a tiny Fitzroy restaurant, to Crown? Tropp is a whiz-kid in chef form, totally ready to take on the challenge of launching 150-person venue Kolkata Cricket Club at Melbourne’s Crown, despite only opening his first restaurant, the 20-seat Toddy Shop, in December last year.

After making her kitchen exit in June – after 24 years as a chef and restaurateur – the celebrated (and community-minded) Kylie Kwong took a career pivot: joining the Powerhouse Museum as an associate in its new food program. She’s already making moves, launching a dinner series celebrating Western Sydney’s Indian communities. Just like the days of her saucy, spicy fried eggs at Lucky Kwong, her new gig’s tasty and impactful.

After putting in time at Baba’s Place and Ester, this young chef’s captaining the kitchen at one of the year’s hottest-out-of-the-gate openings: Olympus. She’s pushing spanakopita with hand-stretched filo and a collection of woodfired proteins, and making a strong case for offal with a golden serve of crispy-fried lamb brains. If this is Kalvo’s head-cheffing debut, she’s gonna be big.

We love to spotlight her and, in classic quiet achiever style, she hates the attention. (Sorry Chae.) While the chef has been on the radar for a while now, this year she released her epic first cookbook, teaching us all about how to cook comforting Korean food and make Korean ferments at home.

Fallon is a phoenix. After having life-saving brain surgery six years ago, the chef opened restaurant Colt Dining on the Mornington Peninsula last year, only for it to burn down due to an electrical fire less than a month after opening. This year, Fallon came back from the Colt ashes and opened Mornington wine bar Mr Vincenzo’s. The chef has a new motto tattooed on his arm and all over Mr Vincenzo’s social media and marketing: Tutto passa, Italian for “everything passes”.

Clare Falzon always got good grades. From their time at Gordon Ramsay’s Maze and Petrus, Sydney’s Nomad, acclaimed regional Victorian diner Du Fermier, and South Australia’s Hentley Farm, Falzon has always been touted as “one to watch”. This month, Falzon opened Maltese restaurant Staguni in a 1922 brick schoolhouse in the Barossa, landing a spot on our Best New Australian Restaurants of 2024 list.

We’re taught not to be tardy, but in some instances it’s better late than never. Australia’s croissant engineer may have had the harbour city waiting for five years, but she’s well and truly here, met with open arms (and lengthy queues). Lune’s cavernous Rosebery home is as spectacular as you’d expect, flaunting a futuristic glass cube of croissant chefs at work. Sydney’s glad you’re here, Kate.

We can’t say it was on our bingo card for Liong, the chef behind celebrated restaurant Lee Ho Fook, to open a Brazilian sushi train and a casual spot where everything is under $18, but the chef surprised and delighted us this year with Bossa Nova Sushi and Silk Spoon.

Starting a gelato empire, one of the city’s best restaurants or a killer bar would be enough for most people. But Rivera has gone and done all three with Kariton, a Melbourne-born Filipino gelato shop, which opened its first Sydney store this year to lines down the block, as well as one of the country’s best new restaurants Askal, and Inuman, a Filipino rooftop bar that’s also home to one of the year’s best snacks. John, get some sleep!

Alvarez and Kaul have stolen the crown from last year’s Pop-Up Prince, Tom Sarafian. In addition to her gig as culinary director at the Sydney Opera House, Alvarez has popped up at Cafe Freda’s in Sydney, Jeow in Melbourne and Che Fico in San Francisco.

Kaul, who left her post as Etta head chef earlier this year, popped up in Sydney with the likes of Trisha Greentree and the Porcine team, and started a Sunday lunch series at Melbourne’s Bar Bellamy with chefs including Hugh Allen and Shannon Martinez.

And the cherry on top? The pair even teamed up at the Sydney’s MCA this year for a one-off dinner hosted by Broadsheet.

When it comes to closed-loop cooking with a slow, sustainable bent, Kane Pollard is that guy. He’s Adelaide Hills royalty and grew up in a prominent gardening family. His restaurants Topiary and Ondeen are two of the region’s best, and every bite reflects his principles of considered, climate-conscious food.

Pippa Canavan is cool. Like so, so cool. If you knew her in real life, she’d be your coolest mate. Not only did she open Perth’s ’70s chic cocktail bar, Bar Love, alongside Murray Walsh, she’s also one half of not-for-profit Mix Haus, with Shirley Leung. Mix Haus aims to create an inclusive and safe space for women in hospitality through education, training, networking and workshops. They’re changing the industry for the better. And that’s very cool – and worthy of recognition, even if Canavan isn’t a chef.

Shaw spent four months staging at Ruth Rogers’s iconic restaurant The River Cafe in London before returning home to Melbourne to work with Brigitte Hafner at Tedesca Osteria. With the energy of a student returned home after a foreign exchange, she took her energy and new perspective on the world and opened Fitzroy’s Carnation Canteen this year. It’s one of the most special restaurants of 2024.

Snug is the coolest thing that happened in Brisbane this year. It’s a Korean cafe by day and a sophisticated wine bar by night. And the whole city has a crush on its owners, chef couple Jeoung and Claydon.

Again, not actually a chef. But if Saito’s mixing it, we’re drinking it. The bartender is in charge of drinks at Molli and her inventive drinks menu – which has a 50/50 split between alcoholic and non- or low-alc options, and includes inventive drinks like a honey mandarin and milk oolong tea kombucha – makes the new venue worth the visit.

When we announced that star chef Justin James was leaving Restaurant Botanic, people in the industry had two simultaneous reactions. The first? Oh no. The second? Oh shit. James’s appointment put Adelaide on the global gastronomic map and when he packed up his knives the sense was it would take a mighty fine chef to fill his shoes. Jamie Musgrave stepped up, big time.

Neon-lit Tacos, Tacos, Tacos arrived to its teeny laneway digs with … tacos. And a tiny kitchen team: Joe Valero. Every week the Guadalajara-born chef single-handedly slaps 800 tortillas on a hot top, before he fills ’em and sends ’em to your table on silver plates. Just like a single spoonful of his earthy salsa macha, Valero’s doing the most.

As we head into 2025, we’re looking at chefs who left high profile roles, including Sydney’s Alejandro Huerta, Ahana Dutt and Mitch Orr, and Melbourne-based Jacqui Challinor.

We’ve also got our eyes on Tom Sarafian who, after years of pop-ups, is finally set to open his restaurant Zareh in Melbourne next year. The year ahead is also looking huge for Junda Khoo, who is opening Tam Jiak at Sydney’s $750-million Fish Market upgrade, as well as a three-storey Malaysian venue in the Melbourne CBD.

Have you noticed how many couples are running restaurants together? It’s been a big year for hospo sweethearts.

In Melbourne, Soi 38’s Chavalit “Top” Piyaphanee and Phawinee “Tang” Suwankamnerd opened R Harn and are about to relocate their car park restaurant Soi 38. Sydney powerhouse pair Ross and Sunny Lusted opened Marmello and Mr Mills in Melbourne. Thi Le and Jia-Yen Lee reopened their celebrated Vietnamese restaurant Anchovy. And Saavni Krishnan and Sriram Aditya continue to run one of Melbourne’s most exciting pop-ups, Saadi.

In Sydney, Josh and Julie Niland closed Petermen and announced a new project on Hamilton Island. Firepop was one of Sydney’s best new openings of 2024; the couple behind the grill, chef Raymond Hou and sommelier Alina Van, are two of the kindest and most hard-working in the biz.

In Brisbane, another chef-sommelier couple, Brad Cooper and Matilda Riek, have just opened a European diner in a dreamily renovated 136-year-old church.

And in Perth, Jacob D’Vauz and Anisha Halik’s pop-up, Special Delivery, started serving excellent food in the most unexpected location: a bowlo in the ’burbs.

Image credit: Peter Tarasiuk (Jung Eun Chae), Jordan Price (Victor Liong), Chege Mbuthi (Mischa Tropp) and Sally Goodall (Matti Fallon).