It’s an essential time capsule of the year that’s been and a companion for the year ahead for anyone who loves to eat and drink.
Core memories from a year of eating out? How about standing in line in Lidcombe, sipping barley tea and waiting to sink into a bowl of hangover soup? Or rounding the corner in Marrickville to be greeted by a crush of people enticed by the scent of hot meats dripping fat onto charcoal? Pulling into a cafe in Canberra for pancakes as big as your head?
All these singular experiences, the people shaping our cities, and all the latest and greatest places to eat right now are captured in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2026, which was launched yesterday at the annual awards ceremony.
Consider it your essential survey of NSW and ACT dining for here and now, with everything you need to be across for the year ahead.
This year’s Guide has more than 600 reviews, making it the largest Guide ever produced. The Guide went digital last year and is available at your fingertips on the Good Food app, and covers restaurants from Fyshwick to Bondi to Bankstown to Tenterfield. Not only does it fit in your pocket, it’s more useful than ever before, fully searchable, up to date and accessible wherever you are.
The hats? There are almost 150 of them, ranging from tiny Korean soup specialists through to big-ticket fine diners. Across the board, they represent places reaching a level of excellence that sets them apart from the rest, where you can have a good time, every time. 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.
That’s why this year we’ve expanded our Critics’ Picks (marked by a tick) to include every kind of restaurant. 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.
That 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 where a fleet of staff oversee a degustation for the ages. You’ll see a wide range of scores, but – hats aside – the main thing to know is that every single Critics’ Pick has impressed our critics in some way, and tells us a little more about where we are, and where we’re going.
This hand-picked list of 100-odd places that have defined the year is available in the 80-page Good Food Guide liftout in The Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday.
As the Good Food Guide has done since its second edition in 1985, every restaurant with one hat or more in the previous year was revisited and reviewed. The process is subjective, yes, but it’s also based on the opinions of people who live and breathe restaurants, who all review anonymously and pay for their own meals (you can read more about our process and scoring system here). The print edition also includes all our annual award winners, and our list of innovators – those people and businesses shaping hospitality now and for the future.
One more thing we’re super excited about is our expanded regional coverage. This year, we asked our reviewers to report back on more than just restaurants, and tell us about the best coffee, wineries, pubs, bakeries and more in each region. Few among us want to sit down to an entree, main and dessert for every meal.
What, then, is the best Australian-Chinese restaurant in Orange to BYO a couple of cellar-door finds? Who makes the most delicious ice-cream in the Northern Rivers? The Guide has the answers.
All told, it’s the biggest Guide we’ve ever produced, more in tune with how we eat and easier to access than ever before. Taken together, the print and digital versions of the Good Food Guide are not only an essential time capsule of the year that’s been, they’re also an essential companion for the year ahead, for anyone who loves to eat and drink.
A free 80-page Good Food Guide liftout with all the award winners and Critics’ Picks will be inserted in the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday, October 14. The Good Food app is the home of the 2026 edition of the Good Food Guide, with more than 600 reviews. The app is free for premium subscribers of the SMH and also available as a standalone subscription. You can download the Good Food app here.
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
David Matthews is a food writer and editor, and co-editor of The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2025.
