Top 50
Introduction
Welcome to the 2020 Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide. We’ve made some changes to the format this year but what hasn’t changed is the rigour and precision we’ve always expected from our team of reviewers. They’ve spent months scouring the nation’s culinary landscape, gathering the restaurants – old and new – that make Australia one of the world’s great dining destinations. In doing so, they’ve created a snapshot of the places that are vital to eat at right here, right now.
THE YEAR IN RESTAURANTS
This year has been a reminder that restaurants, above all, are businesses. Whether the talk has been of wages or of venues closing their doors, it’s a marker of how tough the industry can be, on owners and the people they employ, to deliver the good stuff. It seems a shift is occurring that’s affecting both the big groups and the little guys. With luck and thought, this will mean an industry with happier, more secure players.
There’s still plenty of creativity and resilience, given the number of exciting openings. The lines between restaurants, bars and cafés are more permeable than ever, offering a wide variety of choice, whether you’re talking classic French or Italian bistros (or, well, anything Italian), late night and fine diners, old dogs showing us new tricks or young chefs stretching their imagination.
In the kitchen, native ingredients are even more widespread and, in many cases, being used in ways that have moved towards a greater understanding, not just of flavour but of culture. Fermented flavours and natural wine, meanwhile, continue to solidify their place in the canon and sustainability remains firmly on the agenda.
HOW THIS WORKS
All the restaurants reviewed for our Restaurant Guide are visited anonymously by our team of reviewers, who pay their own way. There’s a finite number of places allotted for each state; any restaurant making it onto the list is on it because it’s memorable, remarkable, professional and offers an experience that hits all the food, service and comfort marks or adds some other vital element to the dining scene in its particular state.
There’s no reward for using our sponsor’s products, nor do our sponsors have a say in the editorial process. We judge each restaurant on its own merits. A well-run bar in the suburbs with great drinks and food is as worthy of inclusion as a fine diner with magnificent views as long as it meets our overriding criterion – that it’s worthy of your money and your time.
WHAT DO THE WINE GLASSES MEAN?
Max Allen, our wine editor, assigns wine awards based on the quality of wine lists. They’re explained in more detail in the key. To achieve the full rating, the cellar in question has to be substantial in its reach, but we also award more concise lists that make a well-realised statement and bring an extra dimension to the table.
WHERE ARE THE STARS?
Each restaurant in this guide is judged on its merits. If it’s included, it’s worth your time. The very best are ranked in our top 50, but taken as a whole the guide gives a snapshot of where to eat for 2›20, rather than assigning ratings to restaurants, that in many cases, can’t, and shouldn’t, be compared through a simple star system.
WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF IT?
Print guides are nice, but you can’t always take them with you. Our complete guide to the most vital dining experiences in the country for 2020 is available on the Gourmet Traveller website to use whenever and wherever you may be. In the pages that follow you’ll find full reviews of our Top 50 restaurants for the year. Start there, then head to gourmettraveller.com.au for more. Here’s to a year’s worth of great Australian dining.
ACTING EDITOR
Amy Reedy
GUIDE EDITOR
David Matthews
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Virginia Jen
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Matthew Hirsch
WINE EDITOR
Max Allen
STATE & TERRITORY EDITORS
ACT Gareth Meyer
NSW David Matthews
NT Sam McCue
Qld Fiona Donnelly
SA David Sly
Vic & Tas Michael Harden
WA Max Veenhuyzen
REVIEWERS
Helen Anderson, Nadia Bailey, Emma Breheny, Alexandra Carlton, Harriet Davidson, Larissa Dubecki, Vanessa Fazzino, Kendall Hill, Matthew Hirsch, Emma Holland, Virginia Jen, Maya Kerthyasa, Yvonne C Lam, Gail MacCallum, Joanna Savill, Maggie Scardifield, Matt Shea, Belinda So, Dani Valent
INTERNS
Ismat Awan, Madeleine Bentley
50 Gauge
AUSTRALIAN
77 Grey St, South Brisbane, Qld (07) 3638 0431 gaugebrisbane.com.au
+ Brunch Sat-Sun 8am-11.30am; lunch Sat-Sun 11.30am-2.30pm; dinner Wed-Sat 5pm-10.30pm + Bookings recommended
+ Licensed
+ 2-3 courses $60-$78; dégustation $110
+ Cards AE MC V EFT
+ Outdoor dining
+ Chefs Cormac Bradfield & Phil Marchant
Gauge started life as a dynamic daytime destination, then morphed into an ambitious restaurant space for four nights of the week. Now the tables have turned. The elegant café fit-out remains, but brunches and lunches have been sidelined to weekends and its status as Brisbane’s poster boy for big-flavoured, inventive and intricate dining has been cemented. Staff continue to overdeliver, ditto the clipped and mainly Australian drinks list, which tilts towards the lesser-known with juicy amber wines at its heart. Snacks are stellar – freeform chicken-skin crackers with anchovy cream or fluffy sebago loaded into a crisp potato shell and topped with potent malt vinegar cream and a savoury snow of cured egg yolk. There’s a briny theme to many dishes. Mussel cream with yuzu ties together an elegant tangle of cuttlefish and kohlrabi noodles, while Spanish mackerel fillets, lightly salt-encrusted and blush-centred, are served over diced celeriac with roasted hazelnuts. Bright orange tobiko crowns a lamb tartare dotted with pale scallop, finger lime and tarragon, keeping interest levels piqued. Desserts are refined; consider the poached pear with a dulce de leche-style caramel ricotta and celeriac ice-cream. By any measure of volume for creativity and skill, this Gauge is dialled for maximum impact.
49 Supernormal
ASIAN
180 Flinders La, Melbourne, Vic (03) 9650 8688 supernormal.net.au
+ Sun-Thu 11am-11pm, Fri-Sat 11am-midnight + Bookings recommended for lunch, for 6+ only at dinner + Licensed, bar
+ E $16-$32 M $36-$43 D $12-16; banquets $69-$95
+ Cards AE MC V EFT
+ Private room
+ Wheelchair friendly
+ Chefs Andrew McConnell & Perry Schagen
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Andrew McConnell is too creative to slavishly follow the rule book. On face value, Japan is the touchstone for Supernormal, both in the aesthetic – vending machines; individual light boxes for every place at the bar – as well as the influence present in many dishes. But this approach is mixed with the chef’s devotion to flavour, no matter its origins. Spot the signature pot-stickers making their way to every table, then order your own. Follow them up with lamb shoulder, braised for eight hours and presented with sesame-crusted flatbread to dip into a Sichuan pepper broth. From the raw bar, ubiquitous kingfish sashimi becomes something to write home about, with mandarin dashi and a ruffle of hijiki seaweed providing punch. The floor team ably balance duty and fun, showing just enough care without smothering you, while consideration abounds on the menu, with a page of staff recommendations from the hefty wine list and helpful explainers of the different sake styles. Welcome to the world of Andrew McConnell: free-wheeling, fun, flavour-forward and far better than any carbon copy.
48 Gerard’s Bistro
MIDDLE EASTERN
14/15 James St, Fortitude Valley, Qld (07) 3852 3822 gerardsbistro.com.au
+ Lunch Wed-Sun noon-3pm; dinner daily 6pm-10pm
+ Bookings recommended
+ Licensed, bar
+ E $15-$27 M $26-$50 D
