From vibrant bush Pavlova in Bennelong Point to sashimi florist platters in Brisbane: these are the classic Australian restaurant dishes worth travelling across the country for.

Image credit: Parker Blain

Parrot fish with ginger and shallots at Golden Century

1/26

Sydney, NSW

Golden Century, which has moved from Chinatown to Crown Sydney at Barangaroo, has a menu packed with favourites: the san choi bao, the lobster noodles. But perhaps the most delicious of all is one of the simplest – the steamed parrot fish with ginger and shallot dressing. A fine example of harmonised Cantonese cooking.

Cape Grim beef tartare at Stillwater

2/26

Launceston, TAS

Grass-fed Tasmanian Cape Grim beef is raised in fresh air and green pastures and that translates into exceptional flavour. Stillwater co-owner and executive chef Craig Will presents it “pretty true to a traditional tartare” but with a few twists of his own. Currently, it’s created with a lovage oil emulsified into mayonnaise and topped with Bruny Island Cheese Co. raw milk C2 cheese. It gets a seasonal or produce-driven change every few months but however it shows up on the menu, “it’s always one of our guests’ most requested recipes”.

Crab tagliolini at Lucio’s Marina

3/26

Noosa, QLD

The original version of this saucy pasta dish was the fuel for many high-powered business lunches at the now-shuttered Lucio’s in the eastern Sydney suburb of Paddington. It’s since made its way to the Queensland seaside haven of Noosa under the name “Tagliolini 1983” as a nod to its vintage. Made with fresh Fraser Island spanner crab folded through a tangle of bright-green pasta, it remains just as good, more than 40 years after it was conceived.

Image credit: Jo Bainbridge

Macadamia, caviar and kelp at Vue de Monde

4/26

Melbourne, VIC

This deceptively uncomplicated dish has an Australian native at its heart: macadamia purée, rich and smooth, sitting in a deep emerald pool of kelp oil under a crown of caviar. The kelp is mostly sourced from Japan but Vue de Monde executive chef Hugh Allen – who plans to hero underutilised ingredients at his new venue, Yiaga in Fitzroy Gardens – also makes use of different seaweeds from South Australia when they’re available.

Image credit: Jo Bainbridge

Marron scrambled eggs at Saint Peter

5/26

Paddington, NSW

A version of this luxurious dish first appeared at Petermen, Josh and Julie Niland’s now-closed restaurant on Sydney’s North Shore. Today, this showstopper, which has the Western Australian crustacean carved into jewel-like segments on top of creamy eggs, is the centrepiece of the breakfast menu at the couple’s elegant hotel, The Grand National.

Image credit: Kristoffer Paulsen

Papaya salad at Soi 38

6/26

Melbourne, VIC

The beloved Northern Thai institution Soi 38 may have graduated from its original carpark location but its fiery, spice-fuelled menu is unchanged. The restaurant offers several takes on papaya salad, including tum Thai, served with dried shrimp and peanuts, tum plara kung sod, featuring raw prawns, and perhaps the most popular, the tum pu plara, with salted crab and fermented fish sauce.

Image credit: Ashley St George

Anchovy toast at Bar Rochford

7/26

Canberra, ACT

About five or six years ago, it was virtually illegal to create a small-plates, bar-style menu without including anchovy toast. Bar Rochford got the memo. The then head chef, Josh Lundy, created a version with silver Spanish anchovies and sauce gribiche – “A bit daggy 1980s,” says co-owner Nick Smith proudly. Customers couldn’t get enough and it’s been on the menu ever since. “People paid out anchovy toast after a while,” says Smith of the once-ubiquitous dish. “But we battened down the hatches because people love it.”

Image credit: Ashley St George

Mark Olive’s Bush Pavlova at Midden by Mark Olive

8/26

Bennelong Point, NSW

Many countries claim ownership of the pavlova (or “pav” as it’s affectionately known). Australia, New Zealand, Germany and even the United States have all been cited as possible originators of the meringue-based dessert. Bundjalung chef Mark Olive’s version is about as Aussie as it gets. Served at his Sydney Opera House restaurant, it’s infused with native flavours: fluffy folds of wattleseed cream and a coulis made with riberry, Illawarra plum and rosella.

Image credit: Cameron Murray

Half-time orange at Brae

9/26

Birregurra, VIC

When it was first launched, Brae’s half-time orange dessert – a nod to the fruit pieces Australian kids devour during breaks in sports games – was relatively straightforward. In the bottom of the hollowed-out orange halves, which are grown in the restaurant’s orchard, chef Dan Hunter began with a layer of marmalade, followed by burnt orange cream reminiscent of the crema Catalana he loved when working at the two-Michelin-starred Mugaritz in Spain. Originally the dish was topped with orange granita but in the past year Hunter added a twist, replacing the granita with a deep brown pumpkin and cocoa version, giving the dessert a nostalgic choc-orange, Jaffa-like flavour. In the spirit of its sporty origins, Hunter and his team sometimes turn the half-time orange into a guessing game. “We ask our guests to guess the flavour,” he says. “No-one has ever guessed it’s pumpkin juice.”

Image credit: Cameron Murray

XO Goolwa pipis at Kuti Shack

10/26

Goolwa Beach, SA

Many restaurants pride themselves on using local ingredients but you can’t get more local than shellfish plucked directly from the sand outside the door – in this case, native Australian pipis. At Kuti Shack, even the guests are encouraged to kick off their shoes and see if they can find a few. “You never have to go too deep,” says co-owner Vanessa Button, whose favourite way to serve the little clams, which are available only in the warmer months because of harvesting laws, is with the housemade XO sauce that uses dried pipis for extra flavour. “Paired with pieces of good, crusty bread to mop up the sauce, nothing beats it.”

Tarama on toast at Baba’s Place

11/26

Marrickville, NSW

It’s hard to imagine a more Australian dish than the taramasalata on toast at Baba’s Place in Sydney’s Marrickville. A staple on the menu since this cool warehouse restaurant opened in 2021, the candy floss-pink entree combines ingredients from several global cuisines and wraps them up in a doona of delicious nostalgia. On the bottom is soft-but-sturdy shokupan toast, a nod to Japan. Then there’s a thick, squiggled layer of taramasalata and finally, a sparkly topping of bottarga, pickled cucumber and sesame praline, all of which can claim their origins in different Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures. Combined, they’re an enticing amalgam of Australia’s multiculturalism and a throwback to the childhood of executive chef and co-owner Jean-Paul El Tom. “When I was a kid I’d go to my best friend’s house,” he says. “There’d always be tarama in the fridge and we’d have two or three slices of Tip Top bread with a cold slather of it on top.” Baba’s Place customers are happily continuing the tradition, with almost every table ordering a round or two.

Image credit: Rohan Kelly

Nonna’s meatballs at Lulu La Delizia

12/26

Subiaco, WA

Named for chef Joel Valvasori’s Fruilian grandmother, Luigia, these pork and veal meatballs are served on a bed of polenta and made with 100 per cent love. The tomato-based sauce that surrounds them has the same exceptional depth of flavour as the restaurant’s sugo, which arrives with the unmissable bread course.

Image credit: Remco Jansen

Sashimi florist platters at Sokyo

13/26

Brisbane, QLD

When Alex Yu began working as a chef, he used every minute of his breaks and a good chunk of his own money to hand-craft elaborate sashimi platters, decorated not just with raw fish but also flowers, foliage and gold leaf. “It was basically a hobby,” says Yu, now executive chef at Sokyo at The Star Brisbane. Over time, his platter artworks found their way onto guests’ tables, earning him the title of “sashimi florist”. Today, the most intricate of his Opulent Platters is available as a pre-order for $600, features about 60 pieces of fish and is designed to be shared by at least four people. Yu says he still gets a thrill from people’s delighted reactions. “I love to see their jaws drop. It makes me very, very happy.”

Spicy scallop, prawn and pork sausages with pickled cucumber and peanut salad at Margaret

14/26

Double Bay, NSW

When these nuggety sausages land on the table at Margaret, the first impression is understated to say the least. Then you bite into one. The combination of flavours – savoury, spicy, sweet – belies their low-key appearance, especially served with pineapple and pickled cucumber salad. They’ve been a Neil Perry staple since the Rockpool days, inspired by a trip he took to Chiang Mai with legendary Thai food champion David Thompson in the 1990s.

Image credit: Shot by Thom

Duck at Wildflower

15/26

Perth, WA

The menu at Perth fine-dining restaurant Wildflower almost always features one of Western Australia’s most prized proteins: duck, often sourced from Wagin, a family farm. “It’s a staple here,” says head chef Paul Wilson. “There was one season that it wasn’t on the menu but I came to realise it’s a favourite.” The menu works to the six seasons of the Noongar calendar so the dish ebbs and flows with available ingredients. The duck might be served alongside carrot, cooked with lemon myrtle, pepperberry and coastal rosemary, and a duck fat crumpet topped with duck prosciutto or as a soft liver parfait dipped in a beetroot and quandong glaze, balanced on a wild rosella meringue.

Image credit: Dishin Up Darwin

Laksa at Kopi Stop

16/26

Darwin, NT

Darwin is Australia’s curry laksa capital: locals eat the Peranakan/Singaporean/Malay soup of coconut milk, spices and noodles by the bucketful and there’s even an annual Laksa Festival where devotees judge the city’s best. The laksa at Kopi Stop scored the People’s Choice gong in 2023 and 2024 and will be defending its title at the festival this month. “It’s the balance of flavours and the way we cook the paste from scratch,” says owner Jules Mou about the popularity of her slurpable soup. “It’s not too spicy, not too sweet. And it’s light enough that you want to keep drinking it.” Available from breakfast time, seven days a week, the laksa is so good that even Mou’s Singapore-based mum and sister have given it the thumbs up. “My sister loves it because it has so many ingredients,” says Mou. “And it’s wholesome.”

Image credit: Josie Withers

Kabuli palaw at Parwana Afghan Kitchen

17/26

Torrensville, SA

Chef and owner Farida Ayubi describes her comforting and refined rice dish – speckled with caramelised carrot, nuts and sultanas – as a meal that “commands reverence”. An entire nation would agree; it is, after all, considered Afghanistan’s national dish. It’s been a fixture at Parwana Afghan Kitchen since the restaurant opened in 2009 and plays beautifully with a side of eggplant banjaan borani.

Dumplings at The Salopian Inn

18/26

McLaren Vale, SA

Karena Armstrong is known not only for the popularity of her cosy McLaren Vale restaurant but also (until she stepped down this year) as the endlessly energetic director of South Australia’s premier food festival, Tasting Australia. Although every dish at The Salopian Inn is led by the seasons in its organic garden, several have cemented themselves as stayers, most notably its famous dumplings. Armstrong perfected these during her time working at now-closed Billy Kwong in Sydney. The fillings vary – they could include pork and spring onion, perhaps a little prawn or kimchi, floating in a satisfyingly savoury broth, glistening with chilli and fragrant aromatics. But one thing never alters: the chef’s exacting standards.

Image credit: Ashley St George

Banoffee pie at Eightysix

19/26

Canberra, ACT

Canberrans have loved this sugarbomb banana and caramel dessert from the day it hit the menu at the Braddon venue in 2013. Some say the secret’s in the cream overload of the topping, others swear by the salty crunch of the pretzels. Whatever it is, there’d be riots if it ever disappeared.

Image credit: James Thompson

Spicy Aleppo pepper scrolls at A.P Bakery

20/26

Sydney, NSW

The spicy Aleppo pepper scroll (above) – showered in a fire-red confetti of spice – became an instant hit at the first A.P Bakery on the rooftop of Sydney’s Paramount House. They’re now available at its six bakeries around the city.

Dim sim at South Melbourne Market

21/26

Melbourne, VIC

If you don’t line up for a dimmie (dim sim) (above, right) at South Melbourne Market, can you even call yourself a local? The best way to eat them is straight out of the bag with a double sauce-squirt of chilli and soy.

Conti rolls at The Re Store

22/26

Perth, WA

Conti rolls (top) – generous sandwiches reminiscent of Italian muffaletta – are a Perth delicacy. The Re Store in Northbridge consistently serves one of the city’s best.

Image credit: Parker Blain

Basque cheesecake at Idle Bakery

23/26

Brisbane, QLD

In Brisbane, Agnes Bakery’s famous Basque cheesecake has made its way to a new home: the Idle bakery in New Farm. Join the queue to sample its superb blend of sweetness, tang and creaminess.

Image credit: @cinnamon_and_cherry / Instagram

Simit at Cinnamon and Cherry Cafe

24/26

Franklin, TAS

Cinnamon and Cherry cafe in the tiny riverside hamlet of Franklin brings a taste of Turkiyë to Tasmania. Its fresh-baked simit, a soft sesame seed-coated bread, is worth the drive from Hobart (feta and olive is the flavour pick).

Image credit: Kalimera Souvlaki Art

Pork gyro at Kalimera Souvlaki Art

25/26

Melbourne, VIC

The pork gyro – stuffed with chips and fire-grilled, of course – from Kalimera Souvlaki Art in Oakleigh is the smart choice for a taste of Melbourne’s vibrant Greek culinary culture.

Image credit: Pete Dillon