To me, food is as much about the moment, the occasion, the location and the company as it is about the taste.
Heston Blumenthal
Working in the restaurant industry is a tough gig. Long hours and high pressure mean only the most passionate chefs can make it big. The chefs who do manage to break their way into celebrity status and earn Michelin stars are the best of the best. Discover the top Australian chefs to look out for when making dinner reservations!
What Makes a Good Chef?
This 'best Australian chefs' list focuses on chefs whose restaurants repeatedly feature in the Good Food Guide Chef Hat Awards. They are known for their culinary innovation — cuisine which uses local produce and native Australian ingredients — and for their long waiting list for a reservation. (But when you finally get a table — wow!)
Of course, there are also plenty of incredible chefs around the world to learn about as well!
Peter Gilmore
You may recognise Peter Gilmore from his regular appearances on MasterChef, where he set one of the hardest elimination challenge recipes ever — the snow egg. Peter was the first Australian chef to embrace the diversity of the vegetable garden, and he champions fresh produce from small farmers in both his restaurants.
While MasterChef probably made Gilmore famous in Australia, it is his two sister restaurants, Quay and Bennelong, that really showcase his culinary status and have elevated him to the position as one of the best Australian chefs today.
Quay, located in the fine dining precinct of Sydney, has retained its three hat status (equivalent to three Michelin stars) for 18 years straight. Bennelong, in the Sydney Opera House, was awarded two hats. Both restaurants feature creative cuisine and continue to win Australian and international awards.
Tetsuya Wakuda
Growing up in Hamamatsu, Japan and then migrating to Australia at the age of 22, Tetsuya Wakuda could never have dreamed he would one day become one of Australia's most famous and loved chefs. Wakuda's food is a blend of Japanese cuisine, using seasonal produce, and French cooking techniques. His restaurant, Tetsuya's, located in Sydney, was awarded four chef hats, while its sister restaurant in Singapore (Waku Ghin) has been awarded one Michelin star. Tetsuya's closed in July 2024 when their plans to relocate fell through, but he opened a new restaurant, Sagetsu by Tetsuya, in February 2024 in Dubai.
Tetsuya's features a Japanese inspired decor, with private dining rooms and a main dining area, and offers a 10-course degustation menu using locally sourced, fresh ingredients. Wakuda also included a test kitchen in the restaurant design so as to indulge his passion for experimental cooking and fusion cuisine.
You may have seen him as a judge on Junior MasterChef Australia!
Ben Shewry
Ben Shewry grew up in New Zealand but now calls Melbourne home and has been welcomed into the club of Aussie chefs. Shewry believes that food should appeal to all the senses and should taste of the purity of its ingredients. He harvests edible wild plants and vegetables daily, featuring them as key ingredients in his menu at his three-hatted restaurant, Attica.
Only 9 km from the centre of Melbourne, Attica offers a multi-course tasting menu that features the best of Australian native ingredients and has set the benchmark for fine dining in Melbourne. Bookings must be made at least three months in advance.
Clare Falzon
Originally from Sydney, Clare Falzon worked around the world, with a number of the world's best chefs in Michelin star restaurants before returning to Australia and settling in the Barossa Valley (South Australia) to take the role of executive chef at Hentley Farm restaurant.
A single estate boutique winery, Hentley Farm, has won multiple awards for both its wine and its food. The menu features regional ingredients, many of which are grown in the restaurant garden or caught in nearby waterways. They offer a 'discovery' menu with optional wine pairings, as well as private dining options.
Sarah Baldwin
As a high school student, Sarah Baldwin worked as a kitchen hand, washing dishes in her local Chinese restaurant. At 20, she decided to do an apprenticeship and, since then, has moved from strength to strength, culminating in her moving to Brisbane to open her two-hatted restaurant, Joy, in 2018.
The unique thing about Joy is that it seats only 10 people at a time. For such a tiny restaurant, to be awarded best new restaurant of 2020 is a huge testament to the food. Baldwin describes the Joy menu as an 'omakase' experience — a Japanese term meaning 'I'll leave it up to you.' They don't have a menu and can never be sure of what they will be cooking ahead of time. The menu consists of a number of courses plus small bites.
Federica Andrisani and Oskar Rossi
As a young cook, Oskar Rossi left Tasmania to work in Melbourne, then went on to Italy, where he met his wife, Federica Andrisani. The two chefs moved back to Australia, settling in Hobart where they opened their European-style restaurant, Fico.
Fico means 'fig' in Italian. The restaurant, recently awarded two chef hats, is influenced by the small restaurants in Europe, which are as much about family and friends as they are about food. Fico supports small, local produce suppliers and offers a 'casual fine dining' experience, or 'fun dining' as the couple prefers to call it. Most nights, the kitchen offers a set menu, although it reverts to a small a-la-carte menu of their best dishes for Sunday dining.
Ben Willis
Born and bred in Canberra, Ben Willis started his career in the capital of Australia. After travelling the world for 9 years, he returned to Canberra to take over Aubergine, raising the restaurant to two hat level. Willis respects the seasonality of ingredients and uses local produce whenever possible to produce both classic and bold flavours.
Auberine closed in 2022 when Ben and co-owner Andy Willis decided they had achieved all their goals with the fine dining foray and were ready to move on to other challenges. In 2023, Ben opened his new endeavour, Louis, also in Canberra.
Poh Ling Yeow
Although she doesn't have her own restaurant establishment, Yeow is a beloved TV cook who has been featured on Beat the Chef in 2005 and MasterChef Australia in 2009 and again in 2020. She also served as a judge on the latter show several times! She's among the most loved of celebrity chefs Australia.
She went on to star in several television cooking shows, such as Poh's Kitchen, Poh & Co., and most recently, Adam & Poh's Great Australian Bites. She did have a food stall and then a cafe, Jamface by Poh, in Adelaide, for a few years, but they closed down in 2019.
Lennox Hastie
Hastie's unique restaurant, Firedoor in Sydney, is the only fully wood-fuelled restaurant in all of Australia. He learned cookery while working in Michelin Star restaurants across the UK, France and Spain, before realising that he had a higher calling: discovering how to put flame to different ingredients for a brand new experience.
He learned about flame cooking while working at Asador Etxebarri, a world-famous flame-focused restaurant in Spain. Hastie opened his restaurant in 2015, becoming a world-renowned chef in his own right, and even published a book about his experiences in 2017.
Shannon Bennett
Bennett learned from some of the world's greatest chefs before becoming the owner and head chef at his fine French restaurant, Vue de Monde, in Melbourne. He has since moved on to becoming an executor for several other business endeavors, but his restaurant remains a hot commodity in the world of fine dining.
He's still considered one of the most famous chefs in Australia.
Maggie Beer
Despite not having any formal training in the kitchen, Beer became well-known for her top-tier cooking. She and her husband, Colin, have had a long history of working in the culinary field, starting with their first establishment, Farm Shop aka Barossa Pheasant Farm Restaurant, in 1979. She then went on to become a co-host and judge on several cooking television shows and a published author. She is a beloved figure among Australian chefs on tv.
For her work over the decades, she has received lots of recognition, including an honorary Doctorate degree and being promoted to Officer of the Order of Australia.
I always ‘taste’ a dish with my imagination before I put it together and generally my mind’s tastebuds are pretty spot on with what eventuates on the plate.
Maggie Beer
The first step to becoming an expert in anything is simply to begin! No matter your previous experience with cooking, if you want to improve your skills, you certainly can! Whether you want to read the books by these talented chefs or others, watch videos to learn new techniques, freestyle in the kitchen to find your intuitive cookery powers, or learn from a cooking teacher, there are many ways to unleash your creativity through cuisine.
So why not start today, maybe your name will end up on a list like this!
Enjoyed this article? Leave a rating!
Loading...
