Everything you need to know about the Good Food Guide

It’s that time again – the launch of the annual Good Food Guides . The 42nd Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Awards are announced on Monday, October 26, presented by Oceania Cruises and T2 Tea. The ceremony will be live-blogged via the Herald from 3pm, and all Guide reviews will be available on the Good Food app from 8pm. Get your free 56-page Good Food Guide liftout in the Herald on Tuesday, October 27.

The Good Food app is free for premium subscribers of the SMH and The Age and also available as a standalone subscription. You can download the Good Food app here.

For more than 40 years, the Good Food Guide has been Australia’s unrivalled annual dining guide, designed to inform the public about the best restaurants, bars, pubs and cafes.

Published by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald , it’s a collection of reviews across various price points, cuisines, styles and suburbs, offering a snapshot of the most exciting, outstanding venues you need to know about.

Every single Guide review lives in the Good Food app , where users can search for venues via the map, filter by signature collections and save restaurants in lists.

The main goal of our reviewers isn’t to tell you whether we like a restaurant. It’s to paint a picture of the experience so you can decide whether you might like it, and to explain how it sits within Australia’s dining landscape. With money tighter than ever for most diners, users of the Guide want to know where they should spend their money, and be able to trust those recommendations.

The Guide is produced by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age , owned by Nine Publishing. Its editors are bound by the Nine Publishing Charter of Editorial Independence , whose first point states: “Nine publicly declare a commitment to the fundamental and longstanding principle of editorial independence.”

The two annual editions are the work of a team that includes editors, senior food critics and a diverse group of freelance reviewers in each state. Our national reviewing team is made up of more than 88 people of varying ages, cultural backgrounds and life experiences. In each state, a panel of critics and editors with many decades of combined experience finalises scores, hats and awards.

Any restaurant that scored 15 or more in the previous edition is reassessed each year. A new venue is considered for inclusion if it looks interesting and exciting, has proven talent at the helm or is doing something that sets it apart. We visit many others that don’t make the cut.

We’re often asked if we tell restaurants when we’re coming in, if we get free meals or if we get paid by the venues we review. We don’t. Just as we have done for more than 40 years, reviewers book under a pseudonym and pay their bill like everyone else.

Every venue is scored according to a strict set of criteria (see below), and scores are discussed by a panel of senior reviewers.

It’s true that Good Food covers the bill, but contrary to popular belief, our reviewers are paid nothing for eating a meal. They’re paid for writing the reviews, and there are guidelines on how much food and drink reviewers can expense.