Best restaurants in regional NSW worth travelling for

Bistro Livi, Murwillumbah

Why you should go: Infused with MoVida pedigree and a flexible and typically Australian blend of Euro-Asian flavours, the softly lit Bistro Livi brings the fresh produce and relaxed attitude of the Northern Rivers region to the Art Deco M|Arts Precinct building in Murwillumbah. Think share plates like Ballina pippies with XO sauce, Moreton Bay bugs in curry butter or an elegant chocolate tart – but dish options will depend on the season. The simplicity and quality of the menu is matched by the service, where attentive staff will help you explore a varied drinks menu covering local and European wines.  

While you’re there: Bunk at Mavis’s Kitchen and Cabins, a 25-acre former dairy farm surrounded by rainforest just 10 minutes from town (stay for a meal made with produce from the organic garden). In town, Barrels Pizza serves up thin bases and blistered edges, and 2020 Smokehouse BBQ delivers the flavours of American barbecue every Sunday at the Murwillumbah Leagues Club. Just outside town, find the lauded single estate rum makers Husk Farm Distillery.  

Bistro Livi, Murwillumbah - Credit: Jessie Prince | Bistro Livi

Ates, Blackheath

Why you should go: Ates (pronounced ah-tess) serves a modern Mediterranean menu designed around a 150-year-old ironbark-fuelled oven and the best of the Blue Mountains’ produce. Add top-notch wines and whiskeys and you have a memory-making feast set in beautiful Blackheath. Menu favourites include house-made ricotta, woodfired focaccia and roasted meats juicy from the oven. Order the set menu and leave it to the virtuosity of head chef, William Cowan Lunn to guide your meal. 

While you’re there: In Blackheath, stay the night at Kyah Hotel in a stylish room and you’ll be next door neighbours with Blaq, a bistro for steaks, cocktails and one of the best wine lists in the region. In Katoomba, start with coffee and pastries from the progressive Black Cockatoo Bakery, head to Mountain Culture Beer Co’s brewpub for a craft beer with a view and check out Pho Moi for Vietnamese noodle soups and a coconut coffee. 

Roasted cauliflower dish at Ates, Blackheath - Credit: Ates

Valentina, Merimbula 

Why you should go: Valentina, by the inlet in Merimbula, is a long lunch waiting to happen. Bright and airy with huge windows, billowing curtains, cream linen and a hat from the Good Food Guide, this is a masterclass in waterfront dining. The menu rotates but always features a duo of pastas, steaks and fresh fish, plus local oysters and Mediterranean-inspired small plates. The drinks list splits focus between cocktails and an evolving wine list that takes in local makers and boutique international drops.  

While you’re there: Dulcie’s Cottage is part 1920s weatherboard cottage serving up craft beers and cocktails, and party 1950s caravan knocking out unbelievable burgers. Still in Merimbula, spend your other evening at Bar Superette, a wine bar spinning records and serving snapper pie and duck frites, or with cocktails and live music under the maple tree at Kitty's in Club Sapphire. Spend the day at Broadwater Oysters on the foreshore of Pambula Lake. 

Valentina, Merimbula - Credit: David Rogers | Menage a Trois

EXP., Pokolbin  

Why you should go: Few restaurants stay relevant for a decade, even fewer manage to hit new heights but since opening in 2015, Pokolbin’s EXP. has consistently drawn praise from Australia’s leading food media for its celebration of regional produce and polished (occasionally theatrical) service style. Unlike the expansive views and wide dining rooms of other top Hunter Valley restaurants, here it’s intimate, dimly lit and focused on what’s on the plate: a tasting menu that’s innovative but familiar and unfussy. One course could be a sausage roll, another an ode to the famous Australian Splice ice-cream but infused with native ingredients.  

While you’re there: Spicers Retreats provides exceptional hotel dining at all its two Hunter Valley locations. While you’re in the area, hit the vines – many of them have great restaurants attached, Harkham Wine’s relaxed Italian restaurant is the pick for a casual pasta or pizza. If you’re coming from Sydney, drop into Trading Post Laguna, a relaxed, community-focused eatery and shop for toasties, coffee and edible/drinkable Hunter Valley souvenirs.  

EXP. Restaurant, Pokolbin

Bar Heather, Byron Bay 

Why you should go: Imagine dishes such as larb with potato crisps, pork neck pastrami, and tarragon and tomato pippies served with a baguette – Bar Heather's playful cuisine mixing feels distinctly Australian, but there is no restaurant in the state quite like it. Instead of formal dining and matching wines, the kitchen’s unique innovations are served with wine-bar-bistro energy alongside a deep menu of minimal intervention wines (not to the exclusion of more classic flavours) and, if you’re there on a Thursday, live jazz.  

While you’re there: Byron Bay has more great restaurants than you can fit into a weekend so use your time wisely. Start with an overnight stay at Rae’s on Wategos, an ultra-luxury beachside hotel with a two-hat restaurant onsite. Beach Byron Bay is a flashy restaurant with a casual kiosk while the The Smoking Camel serves up neon-lit Middle Eastern. Casual options include Costa Taco, a casual taqueria based on Northern Rivers produce, and artisan bakery Masa. Drive 15 minutes down the road to Bangalow to find You Beauty, Matt Stone’s modern, food-focused take on the classic Australian pub.

Bar Heather, Byron Bay - Credit: Jess Kearney

Megalong @ Lot 101, Megalong Valley 

Why you should go: Megalong is one of the purest farm-to-table experiences in the country. Almost everything you eat – the herbs, vegetables, fruit, lamb, beef – is sourced from the Megalong Valley farm surrounding the restaurant (take a tour through the gardens between courses). And all the produce is grown with stringent organic, regenerative farming practices. Because of that, the menu changes all the time but expect unpretentious, simple cooking delivered with epic views of the valley.  

While you’re there: Lot 101, the farm that provides Megalong’s produce, also has Megalong Valley Tea Rooms, a small, casual venue for farm-side scones, apple pie and tea. After a morning at the cafe, try mushroom picking around Oberon as well as the Kitchen Cafe at Mayfield Garden, a rustic cafe-restaurant in the middle of 15-hectare garden. 

Megalong Restaurant, Megalong Valley - Credit: Megalong Restaurant

Paste, Mittagong 

Why you should go: There is a good argument that most of the best Thai food in NSW is found either in Haymarket’s Thaitown or in the Lao and Isaan restaurants of Fairfield in Western Sydney. But there is one big exception to that rule: Paste. It’s the Australian branch of Bangkok’s Michelin star-winning restaurant that takes on Thai history and the artful cuisine traditionally served around Thai royal circles. The Southern Highlands version serves similar dishes to the original plated up in a humble dining room where the focus is on the food. Expect both recognisable and rare Thai dishes that showcase the balancing act of sour, salty, sweet and spicy. 

While you’re there: Park yourself in the beautiful manor of Osborn House or Bendooley Estate, two luxury stays with exceptional dining options. Caffeinate at The Press Shop then spend the day hoping between Southern Highlands food highlights like Moonacre Farm (book a cooking class or a table at the farm-to-table cafe), Bowral’s miniature bar and deli Cheese etc., and the area’s unusually high number of pie makers. If you have a spare evening book into the family-run Onesta Cucina for an Italian feast or Leila's at The Grand for a Lebanese banquet or Flour Bar, a bakery that transforms into a wine bar at night.    

Spanner crab at Paste Australia, Southern Highlands - Credit: Paste Australia

Pipit, Pottsville 

Why you should go: Pipit feels like a step towards the future of Australian fine dining. The tablecloths are gone, as is the formal service style and focus on stereotypical luxury ingredients that can come with it. Instead, the restaurant is centred on three key ideas: unique local produce (including foraged, native ingredients of the region), maximising every ingredient (using every part and focusing on woodfired cooking) and sustainability (there’s no beef or blue fin tuna on this menu). It’s the output of former Noma chef Ben Devlin and designer Yen Trinh in an intimate, stylish 30-person dining room.  

While you’re there: Start your Pottsville weekend at Black Drop, a relaxed, sunny cafe brewing local beans. Head north for a beachside lunch at the acclaimed Paper Daisy or for a pasta and a tiramisu at No 35 Kitchen and Bar, both around Cabarita Beach. Or head south for tacos and margaritas at La Casita, a coffee and a fish sandwich by an award-winning chef at The Salty Mangrove or order a seasonal noodle soup and a few snacks at Roco Ramen and Sake.  

Pipit Restaurant, Pottsville

Muse, Pokolbin 

Why you should go: Nothing is better proof of a restaurant’s consistency and polish than a 15-year unbroken history under the same chef, a decade of which (the most recent one) comes with at least one hat from Good Food Guide. During the day at Muse you’ll be gazing into the fields of a 50-year-old vineyard and at night, taking in the crackle of a fireplace, and the glow of a kitchen focused on delivering the intricacy of an ever-evolving degustation menu. The two things never change: the focus on Hunter Valley wine and produce, and the signature dessert, Muse Coconut, a dark chocolate husk with a cloud-like coconut mousse.  

While you’re there: The Hunter Valley is a hot spot for produce-forward dining with the kind of views travellers dream of. Bistro Molines is the region’s institution, delivering a French countryside experience with a vineyard outlook since 2008, éRemo has similar bucolic scenery but an Italian menu. Amanda’s on the Edge and Esca Bimbadgen are the modern Australian options, as is Restaurant Botanica where you’ll taste produce grown from the garden outside.  

Muse Restaurant & Cafe at Hungerford Hill Wines, Pokolbin

The Zin House, Mudgee

Why you should go: When you imagine the perfect regional long lunch, The Zin House is probably what you have in mind – no time limits, windows framing sprawling country scenery, casual walks in the garden (wine in hand) and unpretentious country cooking that relies on what’s growing in the garden outside. All menus are set and come with optional matching wines, not just from the biodynamic Lowe vines around the restaurant, but also bringing in other local makers with similar organic philosophies.  

While you’re there: The Zin House is on the beautiful grounds of the Lowe Family Wine Co, just off Mudgee. In town, Alby + Esthers is your morning jaffle and coffee stop, and Althea by Zin is the rural bakery of your dreams. Your spare day can be reclining at Three Tails Brewery for a Smokin Bro and Co heart-stopping barbecue platter made in a custom 1000-gallon smoker or learning to make pasta with The Little Cooking School.  

The Zin House, Mudgee

Flotilla, Newcastle

Why you should go: Some restaurants aim to impress, some to entertain. Flotilla aims for the latter but achieves both. The service is charming, the dining room casual and the dishes are playful and ever changing. But behind the bar, the kitchen is working with premium North Coast produce and fine-dining technique (all of which has helped them win and retain a hat from the Good Food Guide). It’s a set menu with the option of matching wines so all you need to do is relax and let it come to you.  

While you’re there: Newcastle is an underrated food destination, with class options at all price points. Along with Flotilla, Humbug is the innovative high-end pick. For mid-range dining Scotties is a seafood institution. For a casual meal and brew, drop into Uprising Bakery and Kitchen for sausage rolls, Arno Deli for a sambo and Good Brother Espresso for exactly what their name promises.  

Flotilla, Newcastle - Credit: Flotilla