The Good Food Guide 2023: The 14 biggest dining trends in Victoria this year

Phew. What just happened? Between the bottleneck of restaurant openings finally being released, chefs being able to travel the world again to seek new ideas, the pent-up pandemic creativity whizzing through the air and the hard facts of floods, fuel prices and staff being MIA, 2022 was a year of extreme highs and lows. We've stepped off the rollercoaster for a minute to zoom out and survey the dining landscape in Victoria. This is the snapshot of what we saw: the hard-to-ignore trends and forces that will define how we eat in the next year.

1. Escape to the country

Know someone who tree-changed recently? Chefs are doing it, too. The dream of being closer to producers has always lured chefs to regional areas, but in the past three years, that pull became a tug. Cool cats are swapping hot city restaurants for a slower pace at Chauncy in Heathcote, Ballarat's Underbar and Bar Merenda in Daylesford. Bigger names, such as Scott Pickett (Audrey's) and 400 Gradi, made tracks to Sorrento and Mildura, respectively. Jo Barrett, of Future Food System in Fed Square, decamped for the Surf Coast, where she opened Little Picket at the Lorne Bowls Club. And Geelong is the fastest rising dining destination outside Melbourne, on par with Daylesford or the Mornington Peninsula. Think Igni, La Cachette and a coming-soon MoVida. Regional dining has never been better.

2. Care factor

When eating out becomes a luxury item in your weekly budget, attention to detail (and service) can be the biggest lures when choosing which restaurant gets your repeat business. We want warmth, not pomp. We want an inside joke printed inside our espresso cup (hello, Di Stasio Carlton). Or a plate the owner chose at the op-shop, as at Peter Gunn's March. Heck, if you're Navi chef Julian Hills, you might even make the plates yourself (no pressure). Hospitality is a hard business right now, but in a tough economy, coddling is cooler than ever.

3. Sustainability: the mother of invention

What do you get when you throw a climate crisis and rocketing produce prices at chefs? Untapped creativity, inspired by the compost heap, underwritten by flavour.

Attica's crocodile rib snack is served with a garlicky toum-like sauce made with croc fat; later, a sundae appears drizzled with croc caramel. Parcs magics miso out of scones left over from high tea at sister venue The Windsor, then uses it to flavour ice-cream. XO sauces using animal and vegetable offcuts are the new chef party trick, and buying whole animals to use every last gram is increasingly common. The next gen – our Young Chef of the Year finalists – are well-drilled waste warriors, too.

4. Japanophilia

If it's big in Japan, we want a piece too. New Japanese-style venues are multiplying, and there's an unapologetically tight focus on mastering one thing, whether it's coffee, yakitori or tempura. Leonie Upstairs is all about temaki (sushi hand roll), while Sakedokoro Namara is a gift to Melbourne's sake fans. Yakitori is red-hot, too: seen at Kura Robata and Sake, Yakimono and Robata. Japan's listening bars – chat-free zones devoted to rare vinyl – have inspired Waxflower, Her Music Room and others. Our nascent omakase dining scene is set for a boost when Yugen's six-seat chef's table opens under the watch of ex-Sokyo chef Alex Yu.

5. From fun-free zones to go-go-go

Laws clamping down on nightlife in select areas of Melbourne and Sydney don't just feel like a thing of the past – they officially are. Melbourne's eastern suburbs dry zone laws, a relic of the 1920s, were recently overturned, and bars are opening their doors, free of red tape. Two Doors Brewing and Oydis are recharging Ashburton's high street, and wine bar Gloria's has planted the flag on the boundary where the dry zone began in Camberwell.

6. Reclamation cooking

Weaving together contemporary sensibilities with flavours of their heritage, a handful of chefs are spearheading a new movement that redefines what we once would have called fusion food. In the hands of Jeow chef-owner Thi Le, Aru chef Khanh Nguyen, Enter Via Laundry's Helly Raichura and Manze's Nagesh Seethiah (to name a few), fusion isn't a dirty word. But the better way to think of it might be reclamation cooking. It's an exciting statement of what migrant food can be in the hands of those with connections to two cultures.

7. Go glam or go home

While on the one hand being conscious of spending, we're simultaneously in our 1980s moment, where too much is never enough. Caviar? We'll have it on our steak. Lobster? Let me count the ways. Uni? Load us up. At venues including Gimlet, Entrecote, Warabi, Grill Americano, Yugen and even luxe butcher Victor Churchill, you'll see metres of marble, white jackets on waiters, tartare mixed tableside, caviar on cocktails, gleaming silverware, big juicy steaks and round after round of Champagne. The party rages on, although for how much longer is the big question restaurateurs are trying to answer.

8. Empire building

When it comes to size, there's no outdoing Merivale – owner of 80 establishments and counting – or Australian Venue Co's 200-plus pubs. But players of all sizes seem to be taking notes and adding to their holdings. Mid-size maestros such as Frank Camorra (MoVida), Shane Delia (Maha) and the Tipo 00 crew have all added venues in the past 12 months. Scott Pickett's growing portfolio was as talked-about as COVID case numbers during 2021. Navi and Ides added bars next door. Lune, Mile End Bagels, Tarts Anon and other carb compatriots are planting flags all over. It's even more remarkable in the midst of an unprecedented shortage of skilled hospitality staff.

9. Coat-of-arms cooking

It's not news that kangaroo is more common than ever on menus. But emu, wallaby and even croc? They're on the move. Charcuterie at Oakridge heroes emu and roo. Tonka, Bar Liberty and Lene say step aside, steak tartare – there's wallaby or kangaroo that can do your heavy lifting, sans the environmental impact. Crocodile becomes a deep-fried drinking snack at Big Esso, while Attica glazes the ribs in honey, ready to tear up with your hands. Deer and wild boar are also firmly in the sights of chefs seeking sustainable meat.

10. The P-word: prices

This was the year that prices were front of mind. From the brief era of $11 lettuce to the frank conversations restaurateurs and diners started having about the true cost of your meal, there was no getting away from economics as 2022's unwanted side dish. We agree diners need to be aware of the factors that shape the price of a burger or bowl of pasta, and that the bill needs to reflect rising costs. But with higher prices come higher expectations. The Guide exists to help not just those who drop $1000 a week at restaurants, but also readers who may visit only one big-ticket restaurant a year. For the latter, it's really important that you walk away feeling like a million bucks.

11. French affair

We're totally taken with tarte tatin, crushing on creme brulee and smitten with steak frites. Gallic-fantastic dining rooms bubble over with bon vivants, whether it's Smith St Bistrot or the new Entrecote. But French touches – red leather booths, mirrored bars, tiny mosaic tiles – emerged at venues of all stripes. Steak tartare was on the menu of at least 10 restaurants in the Guide; duck, terrine and gougeres are also represented in great numbers. Perhaps French cooking feels like our favourite old jumper, dug out of the back of the closet yet again: no matter how many times we've tried it on, nothing else feels quite as cosy.

12. Merch madness

Can you even open a restaurant now if the tote bags aren't ready? Restaurants are entering the rag trade in greater numbers, treating their logoed sweatshirts like couture and vying against one another for Most Covetable Merch. Smith & Daughters raised the stakes when it relocated in late 2021, with homewares joining its garlic keyrings and grunge-inspired tees. 1800 Lasagne keeps pumping fresh lines of red-and-white sportswear, while kawaii prints on T-shirts and caps are found at Fitzroy's Tamura Sake Bar. And Mortadeli might be in Torquay but its tote bags are a common sighting on Melbourne streets.

13. Korean kraze

First there was the KFC (Korean fried chicken) explosion. Then soju (grain spirit), kimchi and japchae (glass noodles) gained ground. Now bingsu (shaved ice) stalls are growing in number, hojicha (green tea) is flavouring not just lattes but gelato, and cafes are selling towering stacks of gigleori (street toast). Slow-food restaurant Chae is the hottest booking in town. Reservations were recently the subject of ticket scalping. Korean music and TV is helping to feed the trend, but local spins include white kimchi alongside wagyu dumplings at Taxi Kitchen, an Italian-style kimchi on pizza at Figlia, boundary-blurring bread and pastries at Baguette Studios and the cultural mash-up of Nox cafe's menu.

14. Low-touch cooking

Hospitality's record-breaking staffing crisis has prompted restaurants to come up with clever ways to plate dishes that don't require many hands. Fair enough. It explains all the creme brulee, anchovies on toast and big cuts of meat, cooked simply. In fact, so many dishes now arrive at your table direct from the prep kitchen that piping-hot food cooked a la minute feels like the new status symbol.