If you didn’t notice your waiter’s stone-coloured chore coat, a group of runners at your local bakery, or an unpronounceable pasta shape on a menu, did you even dine out this year in Victoria?

Like a chorus you can’t get out of your head, every year in food certain things keep popping up. Some are wonderful, some are not, but we honour them all with the Caps awards. Just like the Good Food Guide hats but with much lower stakes, these awards are a roll call of what’s worth telling your group chat about. Consult this list, and you should have a very delicious year ahead.

Best run clubs

Forget Ozempic; join a run club, where you can jog a bit, laugh a lot and be rewarded with some delicious food and drink just for trying. Keeping the punters honest one sweaty step at a time, hospitality-backed run clubs are perfect for anyone whose attitude to exercise is more carrot than stick.

Our faves? The carb-powered cult of the Tanaka Run Club, which calls Carlton’s Fenton Farmhouse home each Wednesday and Sunday morning; and Sandwich Run, which changes its location but brings the deli sangers whether you sign up for an easy five or a hardcore 20 kilometres.

For evening owls, North Melbourne indie pub Bobbie Peels leads a loop around Royal Park that attracts between 40 and 70 runners each Wednesday, spearheaded by owner Phil Gijsbers, who is the kind of guy who insists that craft beer is an electrolyte. Larissa Dubecki

Favourite house-made hot sauce

Niddrie takeaway joint Charlie’s Deli had us at “spanakopita melt”. But throw in a pot of house-made Chilli Lips, a smoky-sweet dip? We’re dead. Fermented, pickled and slow-roasted chillies are blitzed with chargrilled capsicum and sun-dried tomatoes to make a condiment you’ll want two containers of − just in case.

Other team favourites include the hot sauce universe of sibling venues Manze and Boire, where flavours rotate regularly depending on what’s in season. There might be a hint of green apple one week, or garlic and chives another. Both of the North Melbourne hotspots serve their signature crispy taro fritters on a pool of the good stuff.

We also love Mexican sandwich shop Cumbe’s spicy sauce, a mix of arbol and guajillo chillies, tomatoes, onion, lime and vinegar that can be added to anything on the menu. Emily Holgate

Most confusing closure

June 22, 2025: Cult Tokyo ramen restaurant opens to snaking lines and eager squealing. October 11, 2025: Cult Tokyo ramen restaurant abruptly closes following dispute between landlord and sub-landlord. December 4, 2025: Cult Tokyo ramen restaurant reopens to longer lines and louder squealing. And thank goodness it did – we had no idea how much Kikanbo’s herbal masterpiece, the “coriander lover”, meant to us until it was chained up indefinitely.

It wasn’t just Kikanbo that was forced to close; southern Thai spot R Harn and Indonesian tearaway Kata Kita were among a handful of others that suffered a similar fate, but are now gladly back at it. *Slurps broth in relief.* Frank Sweet

Skewers of the year

Skewers have been enjoying a moment and, in these snack-obsessed times, it’s no mystery why. It hasn’t hurt the cause that they’re a star at The Age Good Food Guide New Restaurant of the Year, Zareh, where smoky edges meet juicy centres on the toum-slathered chicken kebabs.

Go refined at the hatted city restaurant Marmelo, where ribbons of raw garfish are doused in vinho verde vinegar for a sharp one-two punch.

Go rustic at Fitzroy Filipino gaff Palay, where beef skewers hit the spot as a member of the brunchtime tapsilog meal set.

You can even go plant-based at Northcote’s hatted Vex, where parsley root skewers with horseradish do more outreach for meat-free fun than a thousand Beyond burgers could dare to dream. LD

Best chips

You can scoff: an award for best chips is a bit like a prize for the best bottled water. And yes, most places are buying frozen chips and, OK, even the best fries are nothing more than the supporting actor to big-ticket mains. But nothing undermines a fab lunch than lukewarm, underseasoned or disastrously overcooked chips.

Give it up for France-Soir (a Good Food Guide Critics’ Pick), which must serve more than a hundred wicker baskets of frites a night, and yet they’re still crunchy and well salted.

In Brunswick, the Sporting Club Hotel’s crackly chips achieve a Goldilocks thickness and come with a jaunty boat of delightfully downmarket Maggi gravy.

From the same pub family, the Marquis of Lorne in Fitzroy also knows its way around a chip.

City favourite The European’s fries are crispy slivers of goodness with great aioli to boot; cluey diners share the (ample) $17 serve. Emma Breheny

Hardest hustlers in hospitality

A worrying number of our favourite venues shut up shop this year as tough times continued (the full list is below – RIP). But a handful of operators opted to flip their venues the way DIYers do houses in a bid to shift the dial.

Fitzroy favourite Alta Trattoria pivoted from Italy’s north to south, reopening as Cantina Moro, while Mortadeli in Torquay closed its evening pasta bar and shifted its sandwich deli into the space, becoming a one-stop sandwich shop, providore and bar.

The crew at Kirk’s expanded Kirk’s Public Bar into a neighbouring shop, added a British-core menu and called it Le Pub.

Hatted South American diner Morena on Little Collins Street also shut its doors but swiftly reopened under the same owners as Farmer’s Daughters Wine House, a wine bar and bottle shop platforming Victorian ingredients.

The only certainty right now is that nothing is certain. EH

Wackiest gelato flavours (that work)

Once upon a time, salted caramel was considered an adventurous gelato flavour (pause for laughter), but fast-forward to 2025 and the gelato cabinet’s makeover felt like that moment when Dorothy goes from her drab farm to technicolour Oz.

Pidapipo is swirling ricotta and quince with black sesame crunch.

Kariton Sorbetes has continued to celebrate Filipino sweet treats, from its classic cheese-powered keso to its rotating specials like the honey, earl grey and choc-chip (now gone, never forgotten).

And the outre flavours at Fluffy Torpedo in Brunswick and Fitzroy are in a league of their own. Whether it’s Vegemite-white chocolate or marshmallow with grape Aeroplane jelly or pork butter with chilli oil and toffee almonds − well, we’re definitely not in Kansas any more, Toto. LD

Pop-ups we most want to pop back up

With a French-Chinese takeover of Armadale restaurant Zia Rina’s Cucina this spring, chef Rosheen Kaul put her best trotter forward. Literally. A pig’s trotter braised in aged Shaoxing wine, stuffed with chicken mousseline and glazed in a rich trotter reduction was the lunchtime centrepiece on most tables at Bistro Marigold. Two apprehensive locals changed their tune so much they ordered one each, wolfing down the whole hoof. Honourable mentions also go to Kaul’s duck sausage spiced with fenugreek and green chilli; and the prettiest terrine of all time featuring no meat, all spring vegies, luxuriating in tongue-tingling oil.

Elsewhere, Abruzzese chef Daniela Maiorano’s A Modo Mio residency at Sunhands made this Carlton corner busier than the perennially packed Yo-Chi nearby. Meatballs were the main event (her nonna’s recipe), with Maiorano swapping red sauce for white on the angelic, oversized orbs. Bonus: she’s back in town for Melbourne Food & Wine Festival in March. Tomas Telegramma

Most improved vegetable

Daikon has big wallflower energy. Lumpy, off-white and pockmarked, it’s not tapered like a carrot or a parsnip, and it’s got none of the pretty markings of a breakfast radish. Yet, it’s a hero of east Asian cooking, especially Japanese and Korean − two cuisines that wooed Melbourne diners like no other recently.

This was the year daikon sceptics realised that, when it’s treated right, this member of the radish family is a power package of gentle peppery heat and starchy nourishment.

It’s got textural range that spans snappy to buttery. It’s an MVP of Moon Mart’s kimchi. At Critics’ Pick Tedesca Osteria, it’s grated and tumbled through remoulade. At hotpot specialist Oden, four-hour-simmered daikon is topped with a slab of seared foie gras for a high-low remix. And at Cham cafe, silken curls hide in a mushroom clay pot.

For 2026, I’m pushing for a rebrand to “king radish”. EB

Sandwich stocktake

The spectrum of things between bread keeps getting broader. Baker Bleu is still rocking with gems such as the spelt sandwich with pickled cauliflower and harissa, but if you’re at its swank Cremorne location, the sandos at Suupaa next door also vie for your daily intake: toasted shokupan with fried egg and black garlic mayo is a definite day improver.

Sites are getting quirkier. Pop’s Postie Roll dispenses chicken schnitzel rolls from a post office window in Canterbury, and Rippers has taken on an old cottage by Ripponlea Station.

Around the corner, Zelda Bakery’s Wednesday sandwiches are appointment chewing: the challah egg salad is the pick.

Hector’s is leaning luxe, opening a marble-floored bakery and shop in Richmond, then a legal district location so suits can get drippy with Melbourne’s best tuna melt.

Shout-out to an OG sandwich star: Fitzroy North’s Loafer has a salad sandwich that never disappoints.

We keenly watch banh mi developments: Tung Thit has opened two new stores, one in Brighton and another in Springvale, both using quality meat in great value rolls. Dani Valent

Best team spirit award

At Sleepy’s Cafe and Wine Bar, the culinary through line is broadly East Asian, but the conceptual through line − perpetual after-dark pop-uppery − is the true calling card. Are you a chef with a neat idea? Come with a pocket full of tasty dreams, a dash of flair, a sunny disposition, and you’re in. Are you an open-minded diner with an appetite for possibility? You’re in, too, friend.

The team spirit flows freely at Good Food Guide Critics’ Pick and hatted restaurant Etta, too, where chef Lorcan Kan leads a kitchen that guarantees manageable weekly workloads and appropriate recuperation time between services.

And over at Collingwood’s Zareh, the whole crew were spotted donning celebratory toques and reading their Good Food reviewaloud at staff briefing after earning an inaugural hat in October. Smells like team spirit to me. FS

Best staff uniforms

The first thing that might cross your mind when stepping into South Yarra’s Otakoi is: are we on the steppes? This timely Ukrainian restaurant (a Good Food Guide Critics’ Pick) serves borshch and varenyky, the country’s dumplings, that will whisk your spirit to the Volga. But the uniforms steal the show − embroidered vyshyvanka shirts with vivid blue pants are bright, folkloric and perfectly matched to the restaurant’s warm Ukie spirit.

Elsewhere around town, the Amish-look uniform is the fashion moment no one saw coming. The vibe says, “I can’t use electricity, but I can absolutely judge your menu choices.” As witnessed at the likes of Hugh Allen’s new fine diner Yiaga, suddenly waiters look like they spend their downtime churning butter and raising barns. Think stern collars, natural fibres and colours so muted they make beige look like the devil’s work. LD

The ‘it’ charcuterie of the year

Around Australia, it has answered to many names: stras, devon, fritz and luncheon. But that era is over. Proudly reborn as mortadella, this once-humble sausage has been gathering cheffy credibility over the past few years, finally reaching “it charcuterie” status in 2025.

The appeal is in its yielding texture: a foundation of finely minced cured pork, dramatically studded with cubes of pork fat and the occasional pistachio or olive. Its versatility means it’s equally delicious when threaded onto skewers and grilled with a soy-mirin glaze at Daphne in Brunswick East;layered with provolone, mozzarella and tomato chutney in the cult HCT toastie at Hector’s Deli; and in perhaps its finest iteration, transformed into a creamy pâté served with airy, hot gnocco fritto at city laneway stalwart Trattoria Emilia. Roslyn Grundy