What’s up, what’s down: Which restaurants gained (and lost) hats in the new Age Good Food Guide?

High highs and low lows always come with the territory at The Age Good Food Guide awards. But the way the chefs’ hats fell on Monday night means some of the state’s leading restaurant groups and owners are feeling both extremes.

Most notable is the rise of Amaru, executive chef Clinton McIver’s clever-as-ever Armadale fine diner, from two hats to three, while for companion wine bar Auterra, it was a hat lost.

“Amaru has really hit its stride this year,” says Ellen Fraser, who along with Emma Breheny edited the 2024 Guide.

“Not only is head chef Cam Tay-Yap producing some of the most intricate and innovative dishes in Australia, the room is a subtle stunner, and there’s synergy between the kitchen, front-of-house and bar program that’s a real thing of beauty. Amaru was always spectacular. Now it’s seamless, too.”

The Chris Lucas stable has also felt significant fluctuations, with his 80 Collins flagship Society and Flinders Lane steakhouse Grill Americano dropping from two hats to one, while the Chef’s Table at Kisume – an intimate omakase experience tucked above the street-level dining room – upped its game, going from one hat to two.

Two of the city’s most grandiose recent openings – Reine & La Rue, in the old Melbourne Stock Exchange, and South Yarra’s Yugen Omakase – made suitably grand debuts in the Guide, with two hats apiece. But their respective sibling restaurants took a tumble this year, with Nomad losing its hat and Yugen Dining dipping from two to one.

“This was a year when the cost of dining out came up time and time again in conversation,” says Breheny. “Restaurants charging prices at the upper end of Melbourne’s average have to be able to provide truly sensational experiences for diners to see value.”

Other high-profile restaurants to take a hit on Monday night include French brasserie Entrecote, Indian fine diner Enter Via Laundry and Rosetta at Crown Casino, all out of the one-hat cohort.

Vue de Monde, closed since July for a $3-million renovation, was a notable omission from the list of hats. The restaurant led by chef Hugh Allen went into the Guide unscored, therefore bowing out from the exclusive three-hat club.

“Our reviewing panel concluded that we couldn’t fairly score a restaurant that was undergoing such a significant overhaul as the Guide went to print,” says Fraser. “Removing it entirely didn’t feel right either, given its significance among Melbourne restaurants, so we included an unscored review.”

Chef changeovers coincided with a drop in the number of hats at several venues across town. Aru fell from two to one in the wake of founding chef Khanh Nguyen’s departure, while Public Wine Shop and Poodle Bar & Bistro both lost hats as well as chefs.

“After a difficult few years, some chefs this year spread their wings, moving to new roles, new towns or even new states,” Breheny says. “It can take a while for a venue to find its footing or identity after a departure.”

Overall, though, the 2024 Guide includes more hats than last year: 149 in total, up from 131. That’s partly due to the Guide expanding to 324 full reviews, but also the Guide’s editors looking a little harder at hats.

“The way people eat has changed,” says Breheny. “They’re more likely to eat at more casual places more often, and they may not necessarily want a silver service experience. The way we score has not changed, but our view of what constitutes a hatted restaurant has broadened to one that truly reflects dining out today.”

This year’s Guide includes 100 venues making their debut, spanning brand-new hotspots, decades-old institutions, and other discoveries in all pockets of the city.

Of the 35 fresh hats awarded in the 2024 Guide, there’s an undeniably strong Japanese contingent. Single hats were awarded to refined omakase dining specialists Matsu, Aoi Tsuki and Sushi On, as well as more relaxed but no less devoted sushi spot Uminono. Izakaya Den, which took home the title of Best New Restaurant in the 2011 Guide, earned its first-ever hat.

Meanwhile, the 2024 edition includes what is probably Australia’s first hatted lasagne restaurant, Thornbury’s 1800 Lasagne. Other newly hatted suburban gems include Aberfeldie’s Benyue Kitchen, a Southern Chinese eatery by Lau’s Family Kitchen alumni; Belgrave’s Babaji’s Kerala Kitchen, specialising in South Indian food; and Kew’s Nihao Kitchen.

The regions got a lot of love. Sydney hospitality juggernaut Merivale’s gamble to transplant Italian diner Totti’s to the Great Ocean Road paid off, earning it a hat. Nearby, waste warrior Jo Barrett’s bowlo restaurant Little Picket picked up a hat, too. And in Kyneton, chef Tansy Good’s eponymous diner Tansy’s, which had successful inner-city iterations in the ’80s and ’90s, snagged its first hat in its current location.

“Regional Victoria continues to be an exciting place to explore bold ideas, where new operators can have a crack, and diners can expect world-class food and wine with a connection to the land around them,” Fraser says.

The Age Good Food Guide 2024 is on sale for $14.95 from newsagents, supermarkets and at thestore.com.au. It features more than 450 Victorian venues, from three-hatted destinations to regional wine bars, lively noodle specialists and 30-year-old icons. Venues listed in the Guide are visited anonymously by professional restaurant critics, who review independently. Venues are chosen at our discretion.