Best Restaurants in Canberra: A Guide to the City's Finest Dining Experiences

Canberra's restaurant scene has transformed dramatically over the past decade, with the city's highly educated and well-paid public service population supporting a quality dining sector that now rivals cities three times its size. The ACT's farmers market culture, the access to exceptional regional produce (the Murrumbateman and Canberra District wine region, the Snowy Mountains trout, the ACT and Monaro pasture-raised beef and lamb), and the arrival of serious chef talent have produced a dining scene that is consistently surprising for visitors expecting a dull public service city.

Fine dining institutions — Aubergine (18 Barker Street Griffith) has been considered Canberra's finest restaurant for over a decade, with Ben Willis's modern European menu and the intimate Griffith setting providing the ACT's most sophisticated fine dining experience. Rubicon (Belconnen Arts Centre) and The Deanery (Barton) represent the new generation of Canberra fine dining. Monster (New Acton precinct) provides the most design-forward dining environment in the ACT, in the award-winning New Acton hotel and cultural complex.

Kingston Foreshore dining — the Kingston Foreshore restaurant strip (Kennedy Street and the foreshore precinct) is Canberra's most active and diverse dining precinct, with a variety of modern Australian, Italian, Japanese, and specialty food operators concentrated along the Lake Burley Griffin foreshore east of the Kingston railway corridor. The Foreshore's position above the lake and the proximity to the Kingston arts and design precinct creates an evening dining atmosphere unique in Canberra.

Pialligo Estate and destination dining — the Pialligo Estate (Kallaroo Road Pialligo, 10 minutes from the CBD) provides Canberra's finest destination dining experience, with a working farm, an orchard, and a restaurant using produce from the estate in a rural Canberra setting that is extraordinary for its proximity to the ACT's urban core.

Multicultural and neighbourhood dining — the Dickson Asian precinct (Woolley Street and the Dickson Shops) is Canberra's finest multicultural dining neighbourhood, with Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Southeast Asian restaurants that are among the highest quality of any regional Australian city. The Braddon café and dining precinct and the Manuka restaurant strip provide excellent neighbourhood alternatives.

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