Everything you need to know about the Good Food Guide

It’s that time again – the launch of the annual Good Food Guides. The 42nd Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Awards are announced on Monday, October 26, presented by Oceania Cruises and T2 Tea. The ceremony will be live-blogged via the Herald from 3pm, and all Guide reviews will be available on the Good Food app from 8pm. Get your free 56-page Good Food Guide liftout in the Herald on Tuesday, October 27.

The Good Food app is free for premium subscribers of the SMH and The Age and also available as a standalone subscription. You can download the Good Food app here.

What is the Good Food Guide?

For more than 40 years, the Good Food Guide has been Australia’s unrivalled annual dining guide, designed to inform the public about the best restaurants, bars, pubs and cafes.

Published by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, it’s a collection of reviews across various price points, cuisines, styles and suburbs, offering a snapshot of the most exciting, outstanding venues you need to know about.

Our main goal isn’t to tell you whether we like a restaurant. It’s to paint a picture of the experience so you can decide whether you might like it.

Every single Guide review lives in the Good Food app, where users can search for venues via the map, filter by signature collections and save restaurants in lists.

The main goal of our reviewers isn’t to tell you whether we like a restaurant. It’s to paint a picture of the experience so you can decide whether you might like it, and to explain how it sits within Australia’s dining landscape. With money tighter than ever for most diners, users of the Guide want to know where they should spend their money, and be able to trust those recommendations.

Who is behind the Good Food Guide?

The Guide is produced by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, owned by Nine Publishing. Its editors are bound by the Nine Publishing Charter of Editorial Independence, whose first point states: “Nine publicly declare a commitment to the fundamental and longstanding principle of editorial independence.”

The two annual editions are the work of a team that includes editors, senior food critics and a diverse group of freelance reviewers in each state. Our national reviewing team is made up of more than 88 people of varying ages, cultural backgrounds and life experiences. In each state, a panel of critics and editors with many decades of combined experience finalises scores, hats and awards.

How the Good Food Guide works

Any restaurant that scored 15 or more in the previous edition is reassessed each year. A new venue is considered for inclusion if it looks interesting and exciting, has proven talent at the helm or is doing something that sets it apart. We visit many others that don’t make the cut.

We’re often asked if we tell restaurants when we’re coming in, if we get free meals or if we get paid by the venues we review. We don’t. Just as we have done for more than 40 years, reviewers book under a pseudonym and pay their bill like everyone else.

Every venue is scored according to a strict set of criteria (see below), and scores are discussed by a panel of senior reviewers.

It must be nice to be paid to eat free meals

It’s true that Good Food covers the bill, but contrary to popular belief, our reviewers are paid nothing for eating a meal. They’re paid for writing the reviews, and there are guidelines on how much food and drink reviewers can expense. Given the time, expertise and labour that goes into visiting venues and writing the reviews and notes, filing receipts and invoicing, many reviewers are doing it simply because they’re passionate about the industry, and are dedicated to celebrating it.

Home of the hats

Heard the expression, “It’s a hatted restaurant”? The chefs’ hat rating system was created by the Good Food Guide more than 40 years ago to give readers a sense of what to expect in terms of food, service and experience. It has been the cornerstone of Good Food’s rating system ever since.

How hats and scoring work

Each restaurant reviewed in the Guide is scored out of 20: 10 points for food, five for hospitality, three for setting and experience, and two for value. Our reviewers are guided by what the venue sets out to achieve when determining scores. Not all restaurants that have the same score will necessarily look and feel the same. It’s more about whether the venue is succeeding in being the best version of itself. Restaurants scoring 15 or above are awarded one hat, those scoring 16 or 17 receive two hats, and those between 18 and 20 receive three hats.

Why “what a restaurant is trying to achieve” is important for scoring

From 2023 to 2025, we did not publish the score for restaurants reviewed at 14/20 or less. We’ve since brought all scores back and hope they will be seen in the context of what a restaurant is trying to achieve. 13/20 is a great score for a food court operation where there’s no table service, say, but not so good for a CBD seafood grill that cost millions to build.

How are Good Food reviews different to the Michelin Guide?

The French-based restaurant guide launched in South Australia in 2026, under a contract financed by the state government to help boost tourism. At the time of writing, Michelin “inspectors” will not be reviewing restaurants in other Australian states or territories.

Owned by the world’s largest tyre manufacturer, the Michelin Guide annually awards stars (from one to three, like the Good Food Guide hats) purely for what’s on the plate. Unlike the Good Food Guide, Michelin doesn’t factor hospitality, atmosphere and value into its judging criteria.

Reviewing only the food means, theoretically, that a street-food vendor can score one or more Michelin stars. However, it’s also possible to have a three-Michelin-starred restaurant with terrible service and a dull, dated dining room where you pay $800 per person for a tasting menu.

Good Food reviews – especially the full-page reviews published in Sydney and Melbourne every Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday – also aim to write about the restaurant in its larger cultural context, in addition to whether the food is delicious and worth your money.

The Good Food app is now home of the Good Food Guide

In 2024, the Good Food Guide went digital with the launch of the Good Food app. The app ensures reviews are as up-to-date as possible, and gives users a much better experience. You can search and filter restaurants, bars, pubs and cafes in New South Wales, Victoria, Canberra, Brisbane and Perth, meaning you’re never far from a critic-approved venue. If you’ve got your phone with you, you’ve got a Good Food Guide reviewer in your pocket.

How can I use the app?

The full list of reviewed and recommended venues can be searched via the map using the nearby function, or it can show venues in suburbs and cities you might be visiting, allowing you to discover somewhere new.

More than 3500 reviews and recommendations across Victoria and NSW can also be searched via our signature collections, such as one-hat, two-hat and three-hat restaurants, as well as Critics’ Picks, regional guides, recommended venues and lists of the best cafes, bars and pubs. Reviews are added to the app weekly all year round.

The app is included in a premium digital subscription to The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times, or as a standalone Good Food subscription. It’s available on iOS and Android here, or can be found in the App Store or Google Play.

How the introduction of the Good Food app has changed the Good Food Guide

Before the Guide went digital in 2024, it was published annually in a book (later a magazine) with 450 or so reviews – an amount that was limited by the book’s size. That book was released at the Good Food Guide award ceremonies in October, along with the announcement of awards such as Chef of the Year. Once it was published, the reviews were set in stone regardless of any changes until the next Guide was released 12 months later.

Going digital means the Guide is “always on”, so we can update reviews (including the latest opening hours), or we can re-review a venue if there are major changes.

Importantly, at least six reviews are added to the app each week. This ensures the Guide and app remains a living, evolving entity that more accurately reflects our culinary scenes, with more than 3500 reviews and recommendations across NSW and Victoria alone.

Can restaurants pay for inclusion in the Guide?

No restaurant can pay to be included in the Good Food Guide. In fact, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in Australian restaurants each year to put the Guide together.

The SMH and Age Good Food Guides should not be confused with the Australian Good Food Guide, a completely separate organisation that asks restaurants for payment to be featured.

How do you choose which restaurants are reviewed?

Any restaurant with a hat or more in the previous edition is reassessed. A new venue is considered if it looks interesting and exciting, or if there’s proven talent at the helm. An older establishment may be featured for the first time if a reviewer (or perhaps a reader) recommends it for doing something that sets it apart from others of its kind in the area.

Apart from being professional writers, our reviewers are professional eaters.

How often do you review venues?

Every year we head into venues across Victoria and NSW to assess whether they’re up to scratch. Some venues are visited multiple times if there is a discrepancy in reviewers’ scores or if major changes have taken place between visits. In particular, decisions over whether a venue goes from two hats to three or three to two, will involve multiple visits by senior reviewers.

If a restaurant is reviewed by Good Food during the year, will it automatically get the same score in the Guide?

Not necessarily. Good Food publishes three reviews each week for both The Age and Herald, and those reviews are added to the app. In the lead-up to the October awards, we also re-review venues where necessary. Because of this, a restaurant visited shortly after it opened may score, say, 16/20. But it may receive a different score in the Good Food Guide after having been revisited months later.

How the app affects the Good Food Guide award ceremony

Increasingly, the annual Guide awards are about recognising outstanding talent (like Service Excellence and Sommelier of the Year), career milestones (the Young Chef of the Year and Legend awards), new openings and venues that have impressed us with their hospitality and cooking. In that way, we see the award ceremonies like the Oscars – an event that recognises the year’s greatest achievers.

Because the Guide is always on, we’ve done away with the Guide year in its title, replacing it with an edition number. For example, the 2026-released Good Food Guide in Victoria is the 46th edition, and in NSW, it’s the 42nd edition.

On the night of the awards, we announce who has received a Good Food hat and any major score changes, with every review updated or published on the Good Food app.

Do sponsors and commercial partners influence the Guide?

Sponsors and commercial partners have no influence over which restaurants are included in the Guide, and are in no way involved in the selection, scoring or awards process.

What’s a Critics’ Pick?

Throughout its history, Good Food has awarded hats to restaurants that scored highly across food, service, setting and value. But the more we talk about it, the more we find that although they represent a level of excellence, hats can’t paint the whole picture.

Sometimes they’re not always the places suited to every occasion, or the places you’re excited about recommending to friends.

That’s why we evolved the definition of Critics’ Picks. Hatted or not, they’re the places our editors urge you to visit, either to discover something new, to be reminded of how our cities, towns and suburbs have evolved (and are still evolving), or to luxuriate in the pleasure of dining somewhere at its peak.

A Critics’ Pick could mean a takeaway-only burger stall run by an artisan butcher, a nostalgic Thai-Chinese canteen serving noodles from sun-up, or a three-hatted fine diner. You’ll see a wide range of scores among our lists of Critics’ Picks, but the main thing to know is that every single restaurant has impressed our critics in some way.

Do you ever wear disguises?

Not usually. But the occasional baseball cap and pair of chemist-bought glasses have foiled even the most eagle-eyed maitre d’.

The fact-checking process

Reviewers are required to provide details about every dish they ate, and to check with the venue if they’re unsure about the veracity of any of the claims in the write-up. Often, if something seems awry, our editors or subeditors will follow up, either by email or phone, for a line-by-line check of the review. Asking obvious and sometimes tedious questions is part and parcel of good fact-checking and journalism.

How are any conflicts of interest handled?

Reviewers are required to declare any conflicts of interest to their editors upon receiving a commission. If a reviewer has any conflict of interest, they won’t be assigned the review and it will be allocated to someone else.

Our reviewers work in a range of fields, and many of them are freelancers. Conflicts of interest – former or current professional relationships, personal relationships – are inevitable. This is why we require reviewers to declare them up front, and reassign reviews where a conflict exists.

Some examples might include where a reviewer engages in copywriting for a restaurant group, co-writes, ghost-writes or edits a book by a chef, is close friends with a restaurant owner or chef, or has previously worked for them or alongside them. In all cases, the review would be reassigned to someone else. In the case of editors and discussions over scores or hats, they’ll defer to the other senior panel members where any conflicts may exist.

Do you need a culinary (or any) qualification to be a reviewer?

It can help, but the thing we require most from our reviewers is that they represent the public. We expect reviewers to have a certain level of interest and expertise in food and drink, but their role, above all, is to represent the diner, to convey to them what it’s like to go to a venue and eat and drink there, and whether it’s worth their time and money.

In one sense, apart from being professional writers, our reviewers are professional eaters, with years – often decades – of accumulated experience interrogating food and restaurants behind them.

How is Good Food tackling allegations of misconduct in hospitality?

The inclusion of venues in the Guide is at the editors’ discretion.

If a venue is known to allow criminal offences, particularly of a violent or sexual nature, they exclude themselves from being included in the Good Food Guide. We can’t, in good conscience, recommend venues that are known to allow or perpetrate abuse, especially when it rises to the level of criminal abuse.

This widens the criteria we may use to decide which restaurants, bars and cafes we recommend. The Good Food Guide is still about where our editors recommend you eat, but we believe diners also care about ethics.

Why are there venues in the Guide where people say offences have taken place?

Investigating hospitality workplaces is far from easy. We can’t rely on rumour or gut feeling, or exclude venues and people for behaviours we find objectionable. It requires the highest standards of reporting, and not all investigations are published. At times, we may investigate allegations but be unable to substantiate the claims.

You may know something, but we may not. To report an instance of unethical behaviour in the hospitality industry, use this form so we can follow it up. This is the first step in a long road, and it will take time to investigate every tip we receive.

If a venue is dropped from the Guide, does that mean allegations have been made against them? Or that allegations have been substantiated?

No. Venues are excluded for many reasons including:

• A drop in score due to the quality of the food, service and/or setting
• Not satisfying the criteria for either a hat or a Critics’ Pick tick
• Not representing the best or most exciting dining of the moment

How does an organisation that has previously had an unacceptable culture become eligible again?

The Good Food Guide is an annual publication and inclusion is at the discretion of the editors. If we are satisfied that enough new and far-reaching and transformative policies and procedures have been put in place, and real relevant changes have been made, the editors will consider reinstatement to the Guide.