The Age Good Food Guide Awards LIVE: All the winners and hats revealed

Let’s take a moment to appreciate our New Restaurant of the Year, Roma.

Good Food great Roslyn Grundy spent 34 years reviewing restaurants and recipes, but it was a venue opened in May that she chose as the site of her last long lunch with this masthead.

“We have a lot of Italian in Melbourne, but we don’t get much classic Roman food,” Grundy told Dani Valent of her reason for choosing the venue.

“It’s a fun and fresh idea to go into detail on a cuisine we might not have explored.”

It’s been a big night for Hugh Allen, who has walked away with Chef of the Year and Restaurant of the Year for Yiaga, a feat achieved while leading two three-hatted restaurants.

Here’s some fun video we captured of Allen while he was trying to wrangle all his frames for a photo:

Once again, Hugh Allen has made Good Food history.

In 2022, at the age of 27, Allen was the youngest chef in three decades to be awarded three hats. Tonight, the first restaurant of Allen’s own took out T2 Tea Restaurant of the Year in its debut year (it’s almost one year to the day Yiaga opened its doors). Allen himself was also named Oceania Cruises Chef of the Year.

It’s not the first time a chef has won the double − Ben Shewry has done so with Attica − but it is the first time a chef has done so while also leading two three-hatted restaurants at the same time. (Besha Rodell gave Yiaga three hats in January, Vue de Monde was awarded three hats in last year’s Good Food Guide).

Good Food Guide editor Frank Sweet recalls Hugh Allen’s speedy arrival at Vue de Monde.

“[Roslyn Grundy and I] arrived for our midday booking – 10 minutes late, it must be said – and by 12.30pm he’d appeared in the dining room before us, hands behind his back tying a bow on his apron, a hint of wry smile developing in the corner of his mouth, first baby due in a matter of days.”

**Googles distance from Yiaga to Vue de Monde** Yes, doable.

And that’s all 17 awards announced. Congratulations to the winners! Read more about them all here

As Fitzroy gardens-based Yiaga takes home Restaurant of the Year, the winning chef returns to the stage, minutes after he came on to claim Chef of the Year.

“I don’t know what to say,” he says.

“Thanks everyone. It’s been awesome, crazy, as I said before. It’s a dream of mine, and to be able to do it in the city is even a bigger dream.”

Yiaga calls itself “a small Australian restaurant nestled in the Fitzroy Gardens”. It might be the understatement of the year. It’s also the Guide’s T2 Tea Restaurant of the Year.

Hugh Allen has been getting his steps in this evening, gracing the stage tonight no fewer than four times!

What the Guide says: Meaning “to seek and find” in the Woiwurrung language, Yiaga serves 12 courses that roam from Queensland waters to the Victorian Alps without losing sight of flavour. Beauty is the underlying philosophy. Australia, its landscapes and ingredients and culture, is the muse.

The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide currently lists two three-hatted restaurants: Stanmore’s modestly sized Sixpenny and Josh Niland’s voyage of fish-based discovery, Saint Peter. Provided they both retain all their hats in a fortnight at the NSW awards, and there isn’t another venue awarded our highest ranking, then, well … yes … Melbourne will have more than double the amount of three-hatted restaurants than Sydney.

Indeed, the last time Sydney had only two three-hatted restaurants, it was 1988 when Berowra Waters Inn and Claude’s topped the Good Food Guide charts.

Mind you, this is largely because two – two! – three-hatted Sydney restaurants also closed in 2026. UK-based chef Clare Smyth didn’t renew her contract at Crown and is focusing on a new London restaurant instead; and after 38 years of running Australia’s flagship fine-diner, restaurateur Leon Fink called it a day at Quay. Chef Peter Gilmore held three-hats at Quay for 23 consecutive years, which is a run that will likely never be broken (so at least Sydney has that over Melbourne), but all things come to an end, and it was time for Gilmore and Fink to move on to other projects.

Regardless, there’s no denying that people aren’t spending money on tasting menus and big-occasion restaurants like they used to in NSW. I can’t see another restaurant the size and scale of Quay opening with three-hat ambition for some time, unless it’s financed by offshore investors with play money (or Crown), but I have heard tell of some smaller, exciting projects from high-profile chefs in the works, so we’ll be equal with Melbourne – or better – soon enough.

Does Hugh Allen get any sleep?

The wunderkind and Oceania Cruises Chef of the Year gives thanks to his newborn baby boy – who was born only four weeks ago – and partner after winning the prestigious award.

“Shout out my partner because as much as it’s sleepless nights, it’s much harder, and it’s such an amazing feeling,” Allen says.

“So that’s the proudest thing for me this year. So good as this is, I love being a Dad, and I love being part of the city.”