The A-list: 50 great Aussie restaurants

nizi

THIS is a restaurant list, but perhaps not quite the one you expect.

It’s an A-list of 50 Australian restaurants that doesn’t pretend to name the top, or the best, or anything that would normally be calculated on the basis of a set of objective guidelines dealing in categories and points.

The A in our list stands for Attitude. Good attitude. In a dining-out culture undergoing seismic shifts, where the very understanding of the word “restaurant” is under siege from cafes and wine bars doing excellent food, we think it’s important to get back to some fundamentals. The things that remind us why we like eating out in the first place.

Is it all about the food? Or the experience? Does good service outweigh mediocre food, or vice-versa? You can argue till closing time over such matters, and no one is ever really right or wrong. It’s whatever pushes your buttons, isn’t it? And here, within this collection, you’ll find the things that push our buttons when we eat out.

As well as attitude, we look for identity. The places we like all have a strong sense of self. You can feel it from the moment you walk in the door.

And fun, too. A place doesn’t have to be young, groovy and noisy to be fun (though some in our list most certainly fit that bill). A restaurant can be all grown-up and sleek and (relatively) quiet, and still have a sense of play.

You’ll note that most of the restaurants in our list are of the genre commonly known as expensive. No apologies from us. A commitment to excellence, in gastronomy and everything that goes with it, comes at a price, and we just happen to like and admire excellence. And besides, restaurant prices today are cheaper (in real terms) than they were in the 1980s. Who knew what a great deal it would be, eating out in 2009?