Bring a little restaurant magic home by cooking the dishes that dazzled Good Food Guide reviewers this year.
Look, I’m not saying I stalk restaurant menus for fun, but I definitely stalk/eat/repeat restaurant menus for fun. And lately, along with the Good Food Guide team, I have noticed that certain ingredients and cooking styles have been getting a lot of love.
Greek anything is now a food group, and I, for one, am thankful. Salmon roe is popping up like edible confetti. Cinnamon scrolls are doing their best to make us forget our problems. And can we even call ourselves eaters or cooks if pistachio paste isn’t slathered on more desserts than is strictly decent?
So, I thought – why not bring some of these menu darlings into our own kitchens? I’ve taken the flavours Australia can’t stop ordering and given them a wee home-cooked glow-up. There is crunch, there are carbs, and, of course, there is always cheese.
Saganaki with camomile, honey and fennel
This is a dish that nearly broke me. Frying a simple piece of cheese is not nearly as simple as it seems –it can collapse when you turn it, stick to the pan, or fall apart if the heat is too high. This is a lesson in patience, and I learnt it the hard way. I tried everything, from dusting the cheese with different flours to using the baking paper trick (which nearly caused a small fire). Even as a decent cook, I was stumped.
My foolproof trick? A handheld burner. I flash-fried the cheese to get the heat through, then used a blowtorch to caramelise the top. It might sound excessive, but it’s the only way I’ve found to get a perfectly cooked piece of saganaki every time without testing my patience – or my mental wellbeing.
I buy my camomile from Greek grocers or health food shops, which often sell the beautiful dried buds. These not only look pretty, but they also give the dish an amazing flavour.
INGREDIENTS
- 2 x 100g wedges kefalograviera cheese
- plain flour to dust
- olive oil to cook
To serve
- 3 tbsp honey
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp fennel seeds
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- 2 tbsp dried camomile
METHOD
- To make the honey topping, add the honey and olive oil to a bowl and stir to thin out the honey. Add the fennel, oregano and camomile and stir gently to combine. Set aside.
- Dust the cheese wedges in flour, shaking off any excess. Place a small non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Once the pan is hot, add a wedge of cheese. Cook for 1 minute, then use a slotted spatula to flip it. Reduce the heat and cook for another minute.
- To ensure the cheese maintains its shape, remove the pan from the stove and use a blow torch to finish browning the surface. Work quickly to keep the cheese hot. Pour the prepared herb and honey mixture over the cheese and serve immediately. Serve with hot, puffy souvlaki bread and a fresh village salad. It’s what summer meal dreams are made of.
Serves 2
Anything-goes pasta with salmon roe
This high-low pasta dish of the gods comes together quickly, so the key is to have all your ingredients prepped and ready before you even turn on the stove.
Think of the ingredient list as your starting point, not the final word: this recipe is wonderfully lenient. Feel free to dial up the garlic, add extra butter for richness, or adapt it to your exact taste.
Use any firm, mildly salty white cheese you have in the fridge – no need to buy parmesan especially for it! (I used a combination of pecorino and gruyere for the dish you see here.) The flexibility is key.
Ingredients
- 1 x 500g packet dried pasta (I recommend bucatini)
- 75g unsalted butter
- ½ head garlic cloves, crushed or mashed with a mortar and pestle
- 2 tbsp liquid kombu (see note)
- ½ tbsp smoked soy sauce
- 1 tsp oyster sauce
- 1½ cups (loosely packed) freshly grated cheese
- 1-2 tbsp salmon roe or to taste
METHOD
- Bring a large saucepan of well-salted water to a rapid boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente. For the best texture, aim for a minute or so less than the cooking time suggested on the packet.
- While the pasta is cooking, melt the butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant but not browned, 2-3 minutes. Watch this like a hawk – bitter garlic will ruin the dish. Pour in the kombu, soy, and oyster sauce, stir to combine and remove the pan from the heat.
- Using tongs, transfer the pasta directly from the pasta water to the frying pan. Don’t shake it off – you want whatever water comes with it. This will form part of the sauce.
- Increase the heat to high, add the cheese, and stir and toss vigorously until the sauce is creamy and emulsified, about 30 seconds. If it doesn’t seem to be coating the pasta enough, add a little more pasta water and cook until the pasta looks just coated in sauce.
- Season generously with salt and pepper. Turn the pasta out into a serving bowl. Spoon over the salmon roe and serve immediately.
Serves 4
Note: Liquid kombu, or kombu dashi, is an umami-rich liquid available in bottles from Asian grocers and online stores such as Amazon.
To make your own, wipe a 10cm piece of dried kombu with a damp cloth, cut it into four pieces, and place it in a saucepan with 4 cups of water. Bring it to a boil, then simmer over medium-low heat for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat, let stand briefly, then strain before using.
Pistachio morning buns
Most scroll recipes call for a cream cheese icing, but I find it creates a cloying, competing flavour when paired with pistachio paste. To let the nut flavour shine, I’ve skipped the cream cheese. However, if you love that traditional tang, feel free to substitute half the pistachio paste in the topping with cream cheese. Just make sure to combine the mixture thoroughly before spreading it across the buns. These are best eaten the day they are made.
INGREDIENTS
Dough
- 250ml (1 cup) full-fat milk
- 7g sachet yeast
- ½ cup caster sugar
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 85g salted butter, room temperature, cut into small cubes
- 1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 375g bread flour
- 1 tsp sea salt flakes
Pistachio and spice filling
- ½ cup pistachio kernels chopped
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tbsp ground cardamom
- 1 x 180g tub pistachio paste
- 125ml (½ cup) thickened cream
To serve
- 1 x 180g tub pistachio paste
- dried rose petals (optional)
METHOD
- Heat the milk to between 38C and 43C (just above lukewarm) and pour it into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the caster sugar and sprinkle the yeast over the top. Stir vigorously and allow to sit for 3-5 minutes, until frothy. Add the eggs, butter, vanilla bean paste, and ground cinnamon, then stir again. Add the flour, then the salt. Attach the dough hook and mix for 5-7 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic.
- Place the dough into a large, lightly greased bowl. Cover with cling wrap or a clean, damp tea towel and allow to rise in a warm environment for 30 minutes, or until doubled in size.
- Grease a 25cm x 20cm baking tin generously with butter.
- To make the pistachio and spice filling, combine the pistachio kernels, cinnamon and cardamom in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Once the dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto a floured surface. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out into a rectangle roughly 30cm x 20cm (no need to use a ruler!).
- Spread one tub of pistachio paste evenly over the dough, leaving a 2cm border around all edges. It helps to have the paste at room temperature and give it a vigorous stir before spreading. Sprinkle the pistachio and spice mix over the paste.
- Starting from one long end of the rectangle, tightly roll the dough up into a log. Using a sharp knife or a piece of butcher’s string, cut the dough into 6 rolls.
- Place the rolls into the prepared baking tin. Loosely cover the tin with cling wrap and allow to proof in a warm environment for 45 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 175C fan-forced (195C conventional).
- Once the dough is puffy and risen, pour the cream all over the rolls. Bake for 23-30 minutes, until golden. Remove from the oven and allow the buns to cool in the tin for 10 minutes.
- Once cooled, spread the second tub of pistachio paste over the top of the rolls. Sprinkle the buns with rose petals and serve while still warm.
Makes 6
The Good Food app is the home of the 2026 edition of The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide, with more than 600 reviews, including 115 Critics’ Picks. The app is free for premium subscribers of the SMH and is also available as a standalone subscription.
The winners of The Age Good Food Guide 2026 Awards will be announced on Monday, October 27, presented by Oceania Cruises and T2 Tea. The awards ceremony will be live-blogged via The Age from 3pm, and the 2026 edition of the Guide will be available on the Good Food app from 8pm. A free 80-page Good Food Guide liftout will be inserted in The Age on Tuesday, October 28. The app, home of the Good Food Guide, is free for premium subscribers of The Age and also available as a standalone subscription.
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