The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide launched its 40th edition on Monday night , awarding hats to a host of restaurants throughout NSW and the ACT. The Guide was created to inform the public about Australia’s best restaurants, bars, pubs and cafes, and the chefs’ hat rating system – the cornerstone of the Guide for four decades – was created to give diners a sense of what to expect in terms of food, service and experience. Among the 151 hatted restaurants in the 2025 Guide , a trend has emerged: the geography of Sydney’s hats is beginning to shift.
Closer to the CBD there were hats in Hurstville and Brighton-Le-Sands , but it was Sydney’s west that broke new ground. Gursha Ethiopian in Blacktown took out the Critics’ Pick award , while there was one hat each for Sinclair’s in Penrith and Cricca in Windsor. “I’ve scanned the index and map pages of every Good Food Guide back to 1984, and can confidently say that this is the first time a hat has ever been awarded to a restaurant in either suburb,” says Good Food Guide editor Callan Boys.
“Penrith has had a few restaurants featured in the Guide over the years – Tamleni Indian, The Union and Osso, back when it was on Lawson Street – but nothing at a hat level. At Windsor on the Hawkesbury River, a half-hour drive north-east, it’s a similar story. “The Western Sydney maps in many editions of the Good Food Guide actually tend to trail off after Parramatta.
That will no longer be the case, especia.
