Good Food Guide 2018 New Restaurant of the Year finalists named

We're getting to the pointy end of this year's Good Food Guide Awards with the unveiling of the finalists for New Restaurant of the Year. The award, to be announced on October 16 at the inaugural national Good Food Guide Awards, presented by Citi and Vittoria, goes to the most exciting opening in the past 12 months, a restaurant that sets the eating agenda and starts conversations. Here's this year's shortlist.

The Agrarian Kitchen Eatery & Store

The good vibes are plentiful at Severine Demanet and Rodney Dunn's stunning new restaurant, which extends on the principles of their decade-old New Norfolk cooking school. Chef Ali Currey-Voumard's kitchen delivers peerless farmhouse dishes (macaroni carbonara draped in finest pancetta; woodfired meat haunches, pumpkin pie with midnight licorice glaze) built on hyper-local ingredients in a sunshine-flooded room filled with artisanal trowels.

11a The Avenue, New Norfolk, Tasmania, theagrariankitchen.com

Fred's

Where you stand on this restaurant depends entirely on where you stand on paying a lot of money for very nice ingredients cooked very simply but very well. There's the lovely hearth where most of the cooking's done, wrangled by ex-Chez Panisse chef Danielle Alvarez, a big marble kitchen table set with mise en place displayed in ceramic bowls, pitch-perfect service and a wine list with depth and breadth. And between it all, incredible cooking.

380 Oxford Street, Paddington, New South Wales, 02 9240 3000, merivale.com.au/freds

Lulu La Delizia

• Lulu La Delizia's anchovy doughnut recipe

Here's proof that insanely good pasta skills coupled with a fiery wine list and a team that knows the meaning of the word "hospitality" is the formula that can't ever fail. Chef-owner Joel Valvasori has decorated his restaurant to look like nonna's lounge-room, creating one of the most likeable modern Italian restaurants on the West Coast, serving the Italian take on chicken feet we never knew we needed.

Shop 5, 97 Rokeby Road, Subiaco, Western Australia, 08 9381 2466, lululadelizia.com.au

Osteria Ilaria

Melbourne pasta bar Tipo 00 proved such a blockbuster the team has returned with a sequel. Sleek, bricked and marbled with a central open kitchen, it's a place where chef Andreas Papadakis and sommelier Raul Moreno Yague do a little dance. Some dishes, like just-singed octopus and 'nduja, are built to support potent wines. Other dishes, such as nettle gnocchi scattered with blue cheese and almonds take the lead, with a gentle pinot noir for back-up.

367 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 03 9642 2287, osteriailaria.com

Saint Peter

Owner-operator Josh Niland, a young chef with a fin-to-tail sensibility, is unapologetically serving an entirely seafood-based menu. And he's having fun with it, too. There's a "part-y" pie that sees deeply golden shortcrust filled with all the bits of a mirror dory left over from filleting, bound in mornay sauce. If it's wrong to love a fish, we don't want to be right.

362 Oxford Street, Paddington, New South Wales, 02 8937 2530, saintpeter.com.au

The Good Food Guide goes national this year with hats awarded across Australia. The Good Food Guide 2018 will be launched in October with our presenting partners Citi and Vittoria and will be on sale in newsagencies and bookstores.

Good Food Month highlights

Editors' dinner: Good Food national editor Ardyn Bernoth and Good Food Guide co-editor Myffy Rigby host a special dinner collaboration between hatted restaurants Fleet and the Bridge Room in Sydney. For one night only, experience six exquisite courses specially created by Josh Lewis and Ross Lusted using the finest local produce. Hear from both chefs on what drives and inspires them while you enjoy this one-off collaboration menu with matched wines by Peter Lehmann. Tuesday, October 10. For bookings, see goodfoodmonth.com