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Why you’re more likely to find a hatted restaurant in Newtown than Potts Point this year.
A record number of restaurants in Sydney’s inner west received a coveted chef’s hat from The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide on Tuesday, marking the hospitality sector’s westward migration from historical hot spots such as Potts Point and Paddington.
The 41st annual Good Food Guide, published across an 80-page newspaper liftout and the Good Food app, contains independent reviews of more than 600 restaurants, cafes and bars in NSW and the ACT. Only restaurants which score exceptionally high on standardised measures of food, hospitality, experience and value are awarded a chef’s hat.
Twenty years ago, there wasn’t a single hatted restaurant in Newtown, but of the 111 Sydney restaurants awarded a hat this year, 12 are located within the Inner West Council area. “Enmore Road alone now has more hatted restaurants than all of Potts Point, a traditional ‘hatted’ stronghold,” says Good Food Guide co-editor Callan Boys.
For the first time, a Lidcombe restaurant (Korean soup specialist Yeodongsik) made it onto the hat list, and a Guildford cafe (Yum Yum Bakery) was awarded Cafe of the Year Award.
Restaurateur-chef Alessandro Pavoni says he can afford to be more adventurous with dishes at his Italian restaurants at Enmore (one-hatted newcomer Vineria Luisa) and Summer Hill (one-hatted Postino Osteria, which opened late last year), than those in the CBD (a’Mare) and Mosman (Ormeggio at The Spit).
“I like to put on out-of-the-ordinary dishes, using offal, giblets, things like that, and in the inner west they’re happy to try it, they love it, they come back for it, and you can show what Italian food really is, beyond the mainstream dishes,” Pavoni says.
The hospitality veteran made his first moves into the inner west with wife Anna Pavoni in September 2024, lured by the nighttime economy, cheaper property prices and a higher proportion of renters with discretionary income.
“There are good deals around here, opportunities for both young and seasoned chefs to open a successful business here, and the customers will follow, and they will want to come and try new and different things,” he says.
Boys notes ambitious restaurateurs are often attracted to high-income, high-density areas, where people are more likely to dine out regularly. “This is also why there are fewer hatted restaurants in the northern suburbs – if you’ve got a big kitchen, you’re more inclined to eat at home,” he says.
“As smart operators continue to follow the market and suburban growth, I suspect we’re going to see more innovation, ambition and investment in restaurants outside the inner-city bubble.”
The Good Food Guide has also introduced changes to its 30-year-old scoring system to broaden its scope, says co-editor David Matthews.
“There used to be two points out of 20 awarded for ‘X-factor’, which tended to disproportionately prop up venues with water views or a well-known chef. After COVID, we replaced ‘X-factor’ with ‘value’, and that has shaken things up.
“There’s no utility in marking down a family-run noodle restaurant because it doesn’t offer table service, just like there’s no point bumping up a fine-dining restaurant’s score because it does. It needs to execute [whatever it has set out to do].
“The more we push the scoring in that direction, the more we’ll see hats awarded to restaurants nailing their brief instead of fitting into a box.”
Juan Carlos Negrete is the head chef and co-owner of Newtown Mexican restaurant Maiz, which moved to Enmore Road in 2024 and received one hat in the Good Food Guide. He says the rising number of hats west of Pyrmont “represents a cultural shift in the way we look at food”.
“On one hand, in the CBD there are the big operators who have the capital to create big beautiful places and hire amazing chefs. But there’s also emerging recognition for a different type of restaurant, where chefs share their culture through a diversity of produce and techniques.”
Further down Enmore Road, chef Raymond Hou weaves traditional Chinese flavours with NSW produce and fire-cooking at Firepop, the one-hatted restaurant he co-owns with partner Alina Van. The menu is entirely singular, with dishes including wagyu toast with sea urchin butter and native lime, and scallops skewers with pork jowl and oyster cream.
On Australia Street, restaurateurs Elvis Abrahanowicz, Sarah Doyle and Joe Valore were among the first hospitality groups to expand from Surry Hills (where they still operate Argentinian steakhouse Porteno) to Newtown, opening Continental Deli in 2015.
They joined a wave of successful independent restaurants gaining traction in the area, including two-hatted Cafe Paci, one-hatted Osteria di Russo and Russo, and Hartsyard (now closed).
Earlier this year, the Continental team expanded its Australia Street presence to a further three venues: Osteria Mucca and Mister Grotto (both of which received hats on Monday); and Joe’s Tavern, which opened on Wednesday. Lauren Eldridge, the executive pastry chef behind those venues, was named Oceania Cruises Chef of the Year at the awards.
“The hospitality scene here has just gotten stronger and stronger,” Doyle says. “It’s not just cheap eats or fast food, it’s so much more … and I’d like to think Continental has given confidence to other people that, yes, there are legs in the inner west.”
The Good Food app is the home of the 2026 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide, with more than 600 reviews including 115 Critics’ Picks. The app is free for premium subscribers of the SMH and also available as a standalone subscription. You can download the Good Food app here.
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