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Taste on the Gold Coast is like sunscreen on a British backpacker. It is rarely seen and usually applied too late. This is a bar lounge hybrid, almost part Hemingway and part Hamptons. And somehow it works.

Margaret is a sleek, $5 million ode to fine dining complete with blush banquettes and taupe tiles. But it begs a question? Does it live up to the hype or is it just another overpriced meat parade?

In a city where wine bars often lean heavily on mood lighting and playlists but forget the wine part, 40Res steps in as a refreshing anomaly.

It’s got the swagger of a jazz lounge, the comfort of your cool aunt’s living room, and the kind of energy suggesting they care about food but they aren't going to lecture you about heirloom carrots.

Firedoor is not a restaurant. It’s a temple of flame, a shrine to smoke, a cult where everything, including your sense of time, is slowly roasted over sustainably sourced hardwood.

Embla leans into wood-fired cooking and seasonal ingredients, without feeling like it is jumping into trends. Some real integrity here!

With a CV that boasts stints at places like Melbourne’s Supernormal, Stone puts together a concise, no-fuss menu that shifts daily.

Its like a little shopping mecca meets a middle eastern inspired cafe with some very contemporary sensibilities and some old world charm.

Like stepping into a cartoon!

We checked out the bar menu for lunch and disappointed seems to over egg it but we were, well, rather dissatisfied.

I love those experiences where you stumble upon a venue by accident presenting quite a surprise and you find a space you feel like a must return visit. Bar Bombay Yacht Club in Melbourne's Flinders Lane is another offer from chef Jessi Singh. It opened in Flinders Lane at the beginning of April, a location which continues to flourish with new openings including the Melbourne edition of the New Zealand owned Botswana Butchery chain. We came to the space looking for a place to

You know those cool kids at school who were popular for no reason, and seemed to get away with doing not much but were still popular? I reckon New Quarter probably has two or three of those on the floor of their restaurant, and hospitality is possibly not the ideal vocation for them. Oh and there is a thing called an iron which might be helpful for the clothes on three of the staff looking like they've just rolled out of bed and fell into them. The venue is owned by the Comm

A 200 year old former Midland Bank building has been beautifully renovated into stunning, contemporary rooms with a large and popular restaurant in the heart of Tarporley, a pretty village and former market town in Cheshire in the north west of England. I found this by chance, and whilst Cheshire was not necessarily on the itinerary, I am very glad I stumbled across it. The rooms are quite large, for England, and very luxe. Crisp quality linen, huge bath towels and white glo

Meeting a mate from the country at Liverpool Street station, we wandered into a pub called The Bull for what we thought might be a pleasant little dinner and a few civilised glasses of wine. This plan went a little awry, and we could only have a sausage roll at the pub, so we rolled up the cobblestone street and found ourselves at Cafe Luca. What a most lovely surprise it was. This is some seriously good food and a sensible wine list to boot. We enjoyed a Blanc de Blanc, Ch

For 36 years, in an unassuming corner venue on Oxford Street in Darlinghurst, a small Thai owned and operated restaurant has continued to deliver Thai food with integrity, and while there are some things only a suburban Thai restaurant can manage to do, the food and service at Thai Nesia is spot on. We've eaten in Thailand a lot, and pre covid were frequent visitors, and there is a sense of authenticity here which makes our mouths very happy. There is a certain efficiency I

For the last decade and a bit , Tim Webber and Matt Swieboda have operated Love Tilly Devine at 91 Crown Lane Darlinghurst. Its a small, 1920's prohibition style space doing anything but prohibition. Firstly you have to know where to look, then you have to find it. But the rewards when you do are incredibly rich. Chef Webber has a small but very functional menu. Our most recent visit involved several favourites still available to us - sourdough with whipped white soy butte

For what feels like several hundred years, The Rocks has been heavily dominated by tourists and vagabonds, a veritable melting pot of people, cultures and opal shops, targeted squarely at an ever hungry tourist market, in the area to see a bridge, an opera house and to catch a ferry to Manly or across to the Zoo. This is all changing with a slew of venues opening to return the vibrant inner city hub into a mecca for food and wine. One of those is Frank Mac's - a temple to gi

I remember once queueing for the opening night of a taco place in Melbourne. I said at that point I would never in my life queue for street food again, given how prolific it is. I think standing in a long line, for an uncomfortable amount of time, waiting to eat something as simple as a taco or dumpling is a folly, and on my way to this very venue, I stated that to my two dining companions. I. Dont. Queue. For. Food! I take that back. I would and did join a conga line of

Super talented chef Ollie Hansford, formerly of Stokehouse Q in Southbank, combined his redundancy with that of two of his workmates in Aleks Balodis and Stephen Overty, and they opened an unassuming pasta place in Teneriffe. The starched white table cloths and extensive wine store of their past are replaced by a very cute, pastel coloured, minimal fuss venue. But rest assured, this is no suburban hack I want to start at the wine list - a limited number of 12 options and som

You know that feeling or at least I hope you do, when you have a beer from a brewery which is life changing (I kid you not, we are bloody nuts for this beer.... Pomona's Harvest) and then you visit the brewery that makes it? Yeah, that feeling! The Beer Scoffer has been banging on for months about this beer, as has yours truly, so we had to go and visit Deeds Brewing and see if the venue was as good as the one beer. Oh my stars, we were beyond surprised. Firstly, the Pomona'