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Restaurants

Openings, chef moves and kitchen news from the dining rooms shaping the country.

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Bars

Cocktail rooms, wine bars and the people pouring them.

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Hotels

New keys, refurbishments and the hospitality groups behind them.

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Nightlife

After-dark openings, late licences and the dancefloors of record.

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Venues

Live music rooms, function spaces and the entertainment industry at large.

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From the Editor

A bigger winter for openings than the industry expected.

Six months ago, the conventional wisdom held that 2026 would be the year Australian hospitality consolidated. Energy bills, wage settlements and a softer mid-week trade were going to force a contraction. Instead, the opposite is happening. From Bronte to Mooloolaba, operators are taking bigger spaces, signing bigger leases and — most tellingly — investing in late-night infrastructure that didn't exist a year ago. This edition tracks twenty of those decisions, and the people making them.

In Brief
  • · Bentley Restaurant will close after 20 years at the end of June.
  • · Avani Mooloolaba adds 180 keys to the Sunshine Coast in a single move.
  • · Sydney's CBD is quietly building a real after-midnight scene again.
  • · Korean cooking continues its move from specialty to mainstream.