Good Food Guide Awards LIVE updates: Carriageworks ceremony gets under way with all the winners, hats for NSW and the ACT set to be revealed

Welcome to the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Awards

By Annabel Smith

Good afternoon! My name’s Annabel Smith and I’m here at Carriageworks in Eveleigh to help guide you through the Good Food Guide Awards ceremony, presented by Oceania Cruises and T2 Tea. After a stormy Sunday, the sun is shining.

After the success of last year’s earlier start, we’re kicking off proceedings with a mid-afternoon party again. As Guide editor Callan Boys will say in his welcome speech, the hospo crowd are nocturnal dwelling creatures, but they did so well last year that we wanted to drag them all into the daylight again – and the natural light is flooding into the arched windows of the old railway yard today.

Join Bronte Gossling and I as we find out who will be crowned Oceania Cruises Chef of the Year. Which of the 10 hot, new openings claims the title of 2026’s best new restaurant (you can cast your vote in our poll shortly)? Who will gain a hat? All will be revealed today.

We’ll be with you the whole way, providing updates on all the winners as the ceremony unfolds into the early evening, and our roving reporters Bianca Hrovat, Erina Starkey, Emily Holgate, Emma Breheny, Andrea McGinniss and Christopher Harris will be feeding us hot takes, speeches and gossip as the 500 guests, a who’s who of the NSW and ACT hospitality scenes, swap their chef’s whites and chore jackets for cocktail attire, and begin to arrive. There’s plenty of glitz, glam, and cheffy potato wedges and snack packs (yes, really) in store.

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A note from the editors

By Callan Boys and David Matthews

As Good Food Guide editors we’ve consumed enough salt, cheese, meat, flans, gougeres, parfaits, tortillas and caviar-topped scallops (both seafood and potato-based) to give any qualified nutritionist conniptions. We reviewed Fijian-Indian food in Canberra, Cambodian in Cabramatta, and too many CBD grills to count without checking our notes.

We don’t publish a book you can keep in your glovebox or bookshelf anymore, because why would we when the tech gods invented apps? You can now access thousands of up-to-date restaurant, cafe, pub and bar reviews by downloading the Good Food app on your phone.

But as per tradition since 1984, at today’s ceremony we will announce which restaurants gained, maintained or lost a hat throughout the year. To be recognised with a hat (or two hats, or the pinnacle of three), a venue needs to score well across food, service, atmosphere and value.

We’ve been co-editing the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide for the past three years, and the biggest restaurant trend post-COVID has been previously bold and ambitious restaurateurs playing it safe; we’ve never seen more steakhouses or generic Italian openings sweep the CBD. Things are getting better though. Young operators are still finding ways to open personal, intimate diners, and the food in the suburbs has never been more diverse or exciting. Great restaurants find a way.

What to expect in this year’s Guide

By

You can get your hands on a 56-page Good Food Guide liftout inserted into tomorrow’s Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, which includes all the winners plus a curated selection of 100 Essential Restaurants (more on that soon...), the top 10 cafes and top 20 bars, plus the essential pubs and clubs in the city (and beyond), sandwich shops, pizza and ramen round-ups, and regional guides. But to explore every new review from A-Z, you’ll need to download the app which is the ongoing home of the Guide.

The 42nd edition of The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide features 500 independent reviews of restaurants, bars, pubs and cafes in New South Wales and the ACT across various price points, cuisines, styles and suburbs.

Pinned post from 2.59pm

Welcome to the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Awards

By Annabel Smith

Good afternoon! My name’s Annabel Smith and I’m here at Carriageworks in Eveleigh to help guide you through the Good Food Guide Awards ceremony, presented by Oceania Cruises and T2 Tea. After a stormy Sunday, the sun is shining.

After the success of last year’s earlier start, we’re kicking off proceedings with a mid-afternoon party again. As Guide editor Callan Boys will say in his welcome speech, the hospo crowd are nocturnal dwelling creatures, but they did so well last year that we wanted to drag them all into the daylight again – and the natural light is flooding into the arched windows of the old railway yard today.

Join Bronte Gossling and I as we find out who will be crowned Oceania Cruises Chef of the Year. Which of the 10 hot, new openings claims the title of 2026’s best new restaurant (you can cast your vote in our poll shortly)? Who will gain a hat? All will be revealed today.

We’ll be with you the whole way, providing updates on all the winners as the ceremony unfolds into the early evening, and our roving reporters Bianca Hrovat, Erina Starkey, Emily Holgate, Emma Breheny, Andrea McGinniss and Christopher Harris will be feeding us hot takes, speeches and gossip as the 500 guests, a who’s who of the NSW and ACT hospitality scenes, swap their chef’s whites and chore jackets for cocktail attire, and begin to arrive. There’s plenty of glitz, glam, and cheffy potato wedges and snack packs (yes, really) in store.

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