Best food experiences in Australia include everything from feasting on fish and chips by the beach and eating your way through Chinatown in Sydney and Melbourne to degustation menus at Australia’s finest restaurants and meat pies with mushy peas at historic pubs.
Australia is one of the world’s great culinary destinations. Beautiful fresh local produce, talented chefs creating innovative cuisine, fantastic authentic ethnic food, superb markets and gourmet specialty food shops, and much more make it a tantalizing country to visit.
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These are what we believe to be some of the best food experiences in Australia, based on decades of eating down under, especially in recent years. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, but we’ll keep adding to it as we add more stories over coming weeks from our travels in and around Perth, Adelaide, Kangaroo Island, Lord Howe Island, and Brisbane.
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You’re also welcome to add the dishes, markets, restaurants, rituals and more, which you think comprise the best food experiences in Australia in the comments at the end of this post.
One of the best food experiences in Australia is a meal at a fine dining restaurant. Whether it’s imaginative contemporary Australian cuisine at Quay restaurant in Sydney, Attica in Melbourne or Orana in Adelaide, you have to indulge in at least one deliciously creative degustation meal while you’re in Australia. Although we imagine foodies will enjoy a whole lot more than one tasting menu. In Sydney, some of the most exquisite Australian cuisine is being served up at the city’s best restaurants, such as the wonderful Bridge Room, the legendary Tetsuya’s, at jazzy Sepia, at the new Bennelong in the Sydney Opera House, and, of course, at Quay, still perhaps Australia’s finest restaurant. In Melbourne, a meal at Cutler & Co is a must, along with a drive down the south coast to Dan Hunter’s Brae, where he does his unique farm to table cuisine. And then there’s Adelaide…
Adelaide is having its moment and it’s about time too. Home to some of the best food experiences in Australia, Adelaide has a handful of world-class wine regions in its backyard, superlative seafood caught off its coast, one of Australia’s best food markets, and an abundance of artisanal producers, from generations-old bakers to a new breed of cheesemakers, we’ve long found it bewildering that the South Australian capital hasn’t been one of Australia’s top eating cities. That’s changed. Adelaide is now home to a handful of Australia’s best restaurants, including Orana (#10 on Australia Gourmet Traveller’s Top 100 list), Magill Estate (#11), Africola (#60), Hill of Grace Restaurant, and Press Food and Wine, among others. It also has excellent cafes, a flourishing small bar scene, and cool casual eateries, like funky Asian fusion joint, Gondola Gondola.
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A meal at Orana in Adelaide is easily of the best food experiences in Australia. While some of Australia’s finest chefs, from Ben Shewry at Attica to Peter Gilmore at Quay, have long been incorporating indigenous Australian ingredients, such as lemon myrtle, bush tomato and quandongs into their dishes, nobody has done it with the total commitment and vision of chef Jock Zonfrillo and his kitchen team at petite 32-seat fine diner, Orana, where they are producing what could be described as the first truly contemporary native Australian cuisine. If you can’t get to Adelaide, we still strongly recommend sampling indigenous ingredients. Better yet, buy some products, such as those by Outback Pride, which you’ll find at The Essential Ingredient, good supermarkets, markets, and providores, and grab a copy of the
Australia is one of the world’s most multicultural countries with a long history of embracing cultural diversity. Getting a taste of Australia’s culinary diversity, whether at a food festival or suburban neighbourhood eatery, will arguably be one of the best food experiences in Australia you have. There’s an abundance of excellent ethnic restaurants, hole-in-the-wall eateries, and specialty food shops dotting the streets of most city suburbs, especially in Australia’s most cosmopolitan cities, Sydney and Melbourne, where a fantastic, authentic and affordable meal is often just a short train ride away. In Sydney we love Campsie, the location of a fantastic food festival, for everything from Korean to Arabic, and Cabramatta, for its authentic Vietnamese. Noodlies blog is a delicious source of info on cheap ethnic eats in Sydney. In Melbourne, head to Dandenong for Indian and Arabic, and Richmond for Vietnamese and other Asian cuisines. Adelaide is peppered with plenty of authentic ethnic eateries, especially Greek and Italian, while Perth’s best Asian food can be found in Northbridge.
Some of the best food experiences in Australia are to be found in its Chinatowns. The Chinese have been emigrating in Australia since European settlement and you’ll find a Chinese restaurant in almost every suburb and country town. As you’d expect, the big cities of Sydney and Melbourne are home to the best, with restaurants that specialise in regional cuisines, such as Sichuan. Their streets and lanes lined with Asian supermarkets, bakeries, food halls, restaurants, cafés. However, these days China-towns are really Asia-towns, and you’ll find everything from Thai grocery stores to Taiwanese sweetshops, Korean BBQ joints to Japanese ramen shops. Click through for our guide to Sydney’s Chinatown, where must-do experiences include yum cha for weekend brunch and late night supper at BBQ King.
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Some of the best food experiences in Australia begin and end with a short flight. A don’t-miss experience for foodies visiting Sydney is a ‘fly and dine’ flight on Sydney Seaplanes. We flew to Berowra Waters Inn for a sublime meal, but you can also fly to Manfredi at Bells and Killcare, Jonahs at Whale Beach, Cottage Point Inn on the Hawkesbury River, and Catalina right on Sydney Harbour. They will also fly you to Shark Island for a picnic. See www.seaplanes.com.au
The best food experiences in Australia don’t always have to be the most expensive and one of Australia’s most quintessential foodie experiences is evidence of that – feasting on fish and chips by the beach with your toes in the sand and a salty wind whipping your face. Some of our favourite spots for fish and chips include Sydney’s Manly, at a picnic table under the pine trees; Melbourne’s St Kilda beach, where you should spread out a blanket on the sand to watch the sun set over St Kilda pier; Adelaide’s Glenelg, home to another splendid pier and soft creamy sand; and in Perth, on the waterfront of Rottnest Island‘s Thompson Bay, at the Boat Harbour at Fremantle, and on South Fremantle beach, although there you’ll have the smoky aromas of weekend barbecues tempting you to search for a steak. Click through for our guide to Sydney’s best beaches and more ideas for spots for feasting on fish and chips.
Australia’s hip contemporary ethnic eateries are often the products of the children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren of Australian immigrants, or chefs and restaurateurs who grew up eating Australia’s diverse array of ethnic foods. I use ‘ethnic’ here for want of a better term because people from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America have been making Australia their home since soon after the British colonisers arrived in 1788. It was as early as the 1800s that Chinese, Greeks, Italians, Lebanese, and Syrians started settling in Australia, so food from those countries is hardly ‘foreign’ to Australians. While you’ll find fantastic traditional food everywhere, we love the newer representations of these cuisines. Sometimes they’re contemporary because of the elegant presentation of authentic flavours, at other times it’s due to creative new twists on old heritage recipes, while sometimes it’s just the ingredients used, duck instead of chicken, lobster in stead of fish. In Sydney we love restaurants like The Apollo, Longrain and Otto, and in Melbourne, Rumi, The Moor’s Head, Chin Chin, Dandelion, and Golden Fields.
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Some of the best food experiences in Australia are to found at markets. Australia’s cities and towns are home to some fabulous fresh produce markets, the largest and busiest open daily or at least five days a week in the cities and in country towns held once a week or at the monthly. In some less-populated rural areas farmer’s markets might tour a region, so if you’re travelling around the country check ahead with tourist offices in the destinations you’re headed for to find out what’s on when. Melbourne’s best markets are Queen Victoria Market, South Melbourne Market and Prahran Market; in Sydney, Pyrmont Grower’s Market, The Rocks Farmers Markets, Paddy’s Market, and Sydney Fish Markets; and in Adelaide, Adelaide Central Market, which is home to everything from Russian and Latvian to Italian and Greek.
Great Southern Rail offers some of the best food experiences in Australia on the rails, on their recently revamped menus and food and wine experience in the luxury Platinum and Gold classes on its handsome trains, The Ghan and The Indian Pacific. Well thought-out multi-course menus are inspired by the regions the train trundles through and feature seasonal ingredients from those areas, and you get to wash it all down with great Australian wines. Off-board whistle-stop tours also highlight Australia’s wonderful food and wine, and might include anything from a visit to cheesemaker Victoria McClurg’s Barossa Valley Cheese Co. or family-owned Apex Bakery, which
Some of the best food experiences in Australia begin and end with a short flight. A don’t-miss experience for foodies visiting Sydney is a ‘fly and dine’ flight on Sydney Seaplanes. We flew to Berowra Waters Inn for a sublime meal, but you can also fly to Manfredi at Bells and Killcare, Jonahs at Whale Beach, Cottage Point Inn on the Hawkesbury River, and Catalina right on Sydney Harbour. They will also fly you to Shark Island for a picnic. See www.seaplanes.com.au
The best food experiences in Australia don’t always have to be the most expensive and one of Australia’s most quintessential foodie experiences is evidence of that – feasting on fish and chips by the beach with your toes in the sand and a salty wind whipping your face. Some of our favourite spots for fish and chips include Sydney’s Manly, at a picnic table under the pine trees; Melbourne’s St Kilda beach, where you should spread out a blanket on the sand to watch the sun set over St Kilda pier; Adelaide’s Glenelg, home to another splendid pier and soft creamy sand; and in Perth, on the waterfront of Rottnest Island‘s Thompson Bay, at the Boat Harbour at Fremantle, and on South Fremantle beach, although there you’ll have the smoky aromas of weekend barbecues tempting you to search for a steak. Click through for our guide to Sydney’s best beaches and more ideas for spots for feasting on fish and chips.
Australia’s hip contemporary ethnic eateries are often the products of the children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren of Australian immigrants, or chefs and restaurateurs who grew up eating Australia’s diverse array of ethnic foods. I use ‘ethnic’ here for want of a better term because people from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America have been making Australia their home since soon after the British colonisers arrived in 1788. It was as early as the 1800s that Chinese, Greeks, Italians, Lebanese, and Syrians started settling in Australia, so food from those countries is hardly ‘foreign’ to Australians. While you’ll find fantastic traditional food everywhere, we love the newer representations of these cuisines. Sometimes they’re contemporary because of the elegant presentation of authentic flavours, at other times it’s due to creative new twists on old heritage recipes, while sometimes it’s just the ingredients used, duck instead of chicken, lobster in stead of fish. In Sydney we love restaurants like The Apollo, Longrain and Otto, and in Melbourne, Rumi, The Moor’s Head, Chin Chin, Dandelion, and Golden Fields.
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Some of the best food experiences in Australia are to found at markets. Australia’s cities and towns are home to some fabulous fresh produce markets, the largest and busiest open daily or at least five days a week in the cities and in country towns held once a week or at the monthly. In some less-populated rural areas farmer’s markets might tour a region, so if you’re travelling around the country check ahead with tourist offices in the destinations you’re headed for to find out what’s on when. Melbourne’s best markets are Queen Victoria Market, South Melbourne Market and Prahran Market; in Sydney, Pyrmont Grower’s Market, The Rocks Farmers Markets, Paddy’s Market, and Sydney Fish Markets; and in Adelaide, Adelaide Central Market, which is home to everything from Russian and Latvian to Italian and Greek.
Great Southern Rail offers some of the best food experiences in Australia on the rails, on their recently revamped menus and food and wine experience in the luxury Platinum and Gold classes on its handsome trains, The Ghan and The Indian Pacific. Well thought-out multi-course menus are inspired by the regions the train trundles through and feature seasonal ingredients from those areas, and you get to wash it all down with great Australian wines. Off-board whistle-stop tours also highlight Australia’s wonderful food and wine, and might include anything from a visit to cheesemaker Victoria McClurg’s Barossa Valley Cheese Co. or family-owned Apex Bakery, which