A possible total of: 10 points for food, 5 for service, 3 for ambience and 2 for X factor.
-
-
- 12
- Reasonable
-
-
- 13
- Solid and satisfactory
-
-
- 14
- Good
-
-
Rating: 1 out of 3 hats
- 15
- Very good, consistently notable
-
-
Rating: 2 out of 3 hats
- 16
- Great: worth seeking out
-
-
Rating: 2 out of 3 hats
- 17
- Excellent: one of the best
-
-
Rating: 3 out of 3 hats
- 18
- Outstanding
-
-
Rating: 3 out of 3 hats
- 19
- Brilliant
-
-
Rating: 3 out of 3 hats
- 20
- The best of the best
The Sydney Morning Herald/Age employs the country's leading food critics to contribute to an independent, anonymous and unbiased annual restaurant guide. For the past 35 years, Fairfax Media has maintained its reputation as a trusted source for all things food. Our duty, first and foremost, is to our readers.
How we do it
The Good Food Guide reviews anonymously and independently. All restaurants reviewed are at the editor's discretion. Of 20 points, 10 are awarded for food, five for service, three for ambience, and two for wow factor. Scores in The Good Food Guide may differ from reviews initially published in Good Food.
The Sydney senior reviewing panel
Kate Cox
Kate Cox is Managing Editor of Food and Drink across Fairfax Media, which produces Good Food Guides in NSW, Victoria and Queensland, goodfood.com.au and the Good Food sections in The Age and SMH. Her last supper would be a giant feast with family and friends and would include white anchovies on freshly baked bread. And a good red.
Callan Boys
Callan Boys came on board as the full time national food and drink writer for Fairfax Media in 2014. He's had a love of food from a young age, once spent too much money at Vue de Monde and had to live off complimentary hotel biscuits for the remainder of a jaunt to Melbourne.
Terry Durack
Terry Durack is chief restaurant reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald and Director of Australia's Top Restaurants. He has written six cookbooks, and has twice won the Glenfiddich Restaurant Critic of The Year award.
Myffy Rigby
Myffy Rigby is the National Good Food Guides Editor, Creative Director of The Sydney Morning Herald's Food and Drink Events and contributes a weekly column for Good Food. When not eating in restaurants for work, she is eating in restaurants for fun.
Ardyn Bernoth
Ardyn Bernoth is the editor of Good Food. While in previous lives she has been a business, political and education reporter, she cooks, eats, grows and is generally totally obsessed with food.
The Melbourne senior reviewing panel
Janne Apelgren
Journalist Janne Apelgren has edited the food sections of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, as well as six editions of The Age Good Food Guide. She is currently on a gourmet grown-up gap year, researching a book on food and travel.
Gemima Cody
Gemima Cody is the chief restaurant critic for the Age and the creative director of Good Food Month. She has previously edited two bar guides, a pub guide and written for New York Mag. She still isn't dead.
Cathy Gowdie
Cathy Gowdie wrote her first reviews for The Age Good Food Guide in the late 1980s and edited The Age Cheap Eats in 1993 and 1994. Now a freelance writer and editor for media and private clients, she is a regular contributor to Good Food.
Roslyn Grundy
Roslyn Grundy edited The Age newspaper's influential food and wine section Epicure from 1994 to 1997, The Age Cheap Eats guide in 2002 and 2003, and now edits Victoria's restaurant industry bible, The Age Good Food Guide. She has not yet lost her appetite.
Andrew Hagger
Andrew Hagger is a rare blend of business executive (as the Group Executive Wealth at NAB), musician and foodie. He chairs the Olivia Newton-John Cancer & Wellness Centre Appeal Committee and is a former director of Melbourne International Jazz Festival and Wheeler Centre.
Jeni Port
Jeni Port, the 2014 Wine Communicator of the Year, is the longest-serving wine writer on The Age newspaper. A wine judge and author, she was also named a Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014.
Dani Valent
Dani Valent has been writing about food and restaurants for more than 15 years. She has been the restaurant critic for The Sunday Age since 2006 and is author of two award-winning Thermomix cookbooks.
