Hot 50 restaurants: Sydney leads the charge in diverse dining scene

Of the 50 restaurants that make up our annual report on the state of the dining nation, 20 hail from NSW, by far the biggest number from that state since we launched Hot 50 in 2011 and more than double the second-runner (Victoria, with nine).

Why? We’re just humble restaurant critics, not demographers, but a couple of socio-economic factors are irresistible. Optimism about the economy is a fair bit higher in NSW than anywhere else in Oz right now (Choice Consumer Pulse Report); and in a country where cities no longer compete to be centres of industry but centres of consumption (it’s a global trend), it’s surely no surprise that the capital of consumption will have all the hottest restaurants. Hello, Sydney.

And at the risk of sticking the paring knife in, we can’t help but notice that with a few new, upscale exceptions, Melbourne seems hell bent on becoming the capital of wine bars, cafes, brekky spots and pimped-up fast food joints. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. It’s just not what Hot 50 is all about.

Hot. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: we don’t presume to name the 50 “best” restaurants in Australia; the quicksands of illogical comparisons hold little appeal. Neither do we rank, for the same reason. The restaurants in this list are there not only because they consistently excel in that holy trinity of food, wine, service, but also because they know how to tap into the Zeitgeist. (Sorry, NT. Maybe next year.) The very best have an ineffable quality that every restaurateur dreams of and so few attain. It’s an energy, and you can sense it the moment you walk in the door; an energy so tangible you could eat it.

In the past year, in the course of our jobs, we visited more than a thousand restaurants. No, we can’t get to every restaurant in Australia, but that’s still a lot of meals on the cutting-room floor. Put it down to research. Here, then, are a few observations.

The dining scene has never looked so fragmented. Some of our hottest restaurants are polarising: Franklin, Lûmé, LuMi, Brae … Fact is, the restaurant that tries to appeal to everybody is failing and even the less edgy places are focused, individual and unafraid to litter their wine lists with names you’ve probably never heard of.

The dining scene has never looked healthier. Despite rising living costs, rising food prices and wicked wine mark-ups, we’re eating out more often. It seems 20- and 30-somethings are giving up the home ownership dream and going out to dinner.

South Australia continues to punch above its weight with seven entries in the Hot List, the highest outside Melbourne-Sydney.

The rising price of meat. A T-bone at Ester is $89; at Firedoor the hero steak can be $138. As for lamb, it’s goodbye legs and racks, hello shoulders (at gastropub level, shanks). And we’re noticing more funny bits like tongue, and blood (as sausage, or pudding, with chocolate at Lûmé, or Attica’s wallaby blood pikelet).

Charcuterie, almost invariably housemade, is everywhere, and housemade is the adjective du jour.

Dietary restrictions are now so common, most restaurants ask when you book. Gluten-free alternatives are becoming mainstream.

Branded seafood: Pacific Reef cobia, Ewan McAsh Signature Oysters, Skull Island tiger prawns, Kinkawooka Mussels …

Native ingredients: We’re seeing the next level of flavours and more exotic produce — karkalla, bunya bunya, sea blight, saltbush — at places like Attica, Billy Kwong, Vasse Felix, Bentley and Orana. Yabbies are on-trend (Bennelong, Esquire); more chefs are showing off native meats — wallaby, emu, roo — in the raw, often as tartare; and everyone’s gone nuts for macadamia.

Pickling, smoking, fermenting: what every modern chef is doing. Think Flinders Island lamb with smoked oyster crackling at Quay; soba noodles with pickled squid and wood ear mushrooms at Nu Nu; saltbush with fermented chilli at Ester.

Croquettes, and other bar food, on main menus. See charcuterie.

Japanese influences and ingredients are de rigueur on vogue menus. See Bentley, Sepia, Fleet, The Bridge Room, Lûmé.

Butter alternatives: macadamia cream, seaweed butter, etc.

Wood-fired everything, not just pizza: Firedoor, Ester, Africola, Porteño.

Hipster wines: Still prevalent, but the natural/orange wine movement is showing signs of abating.

Restaurants suffering from “taint”. As in, “taint enough”. Rising cost pressures are causing some to downsize portions. Not a good look.

Puffed everything: puffed tendons, puffed rice, puffed grains. At Estelle by Scott Pickett, Ester, Sepia, Oscillate Wildly, Biota Dining.

Nettles, as in Brae’s chicken skin with nettles, ricotta, brassicas and chicken caramel; nannygai with smoked nettle at Wills Domain; flathead with nettles at Sixpenny.

Oyster emulsion: An emu tartare with smoked oyster emulsion at Vasse Felix was our unofficial Indigenous Dish of the Year. See also Botanic Gardens, Africola.

This year we’ve introduced a new category, Hall of Fame, to recognise those establishments that have made their mark on the dining landscape since Hot 50 was launched in 2011.

Dine at our Hot 50 restaurants this year, and you can expect all this (OK, so maybe not all at the same time) and more, as intense competition for your dining dollar spurs the industry to ever-greater heights. Just ask Rene Redzepi, Heston Blumenthal and Jason Atherton, three of the world’s top chefs setting up shop here, how they rate the Oz culinary scene. So our nation is surging towards a consumption-based future? From the food-lover’s point of view, it’s not all bad. Just remember next time you book a restaurant: you’re not just going out to dinner. You’re driving the economy.

Opening soon: British chef Jason Atherton’s Kensington Street Social, plus Automata, Silvereye and more, all part of the The Old Clare Hotel development in Chippendale, NSW; new Justin Hemmes (Merivale) projects Paddington Inn and New York pastry chef Daniel Alvarez’s restaurant, as yet unnamed, both in Paddington, NSW; pasta bar Oggi, Adelaide; chef Paul Wilson’s ode to Peru, Lady Carolina, Brunswick, Vic; Hawker Hall, the newie from the Lucas Group (Chin Chin, Kong) in Chapel Street, Windsor, Vic; Dinner by Heston at Crown Melbourne; and David Thompson’s street-food restaurant and Singapore outpost, Long Chim at the Como Hotel, Perth; and in the same development, Wildflower.

Source: The Australian, John Lethlean, 22^nd August 2015
Originally published as: Hot 50 restaurants: Sydney leads the charge in diverse dining scene