Time Out Food & Drink Awards 2022: Best Regional Restaurant

Call us suckers, if you will, but as soon as we find out a restaurant kitchen revolves around an enormous woodfired oven, we're whipping out our phones to make the first booking we can. And when a venue is so bold to name themselves after that most crucial element, fire, then they'd better have the goods to back it up. Ates, or 'fire' in Ottoman Turkish is the name of the game at this cosy and casual piece of Blackheath history. The approachable yet still very high-end cooking you'll find here is just what the Mountains need. And while the stirrings of that new wave have been building here for a while now, Ates has well and truly set the benchmark for cool eating.

To say that Bistro Molines chef and owner, Robert Molines, is the grandfather of Hunter hospitality is no overstatement. Together with wife Sally, Bistro Molines has set the bar for food, warm hospitality, and stunning views when it comes to dining in wine country since 2008 and the locals and travellers alike are still flocking 14 years later. The only thing that beats a meal here, not to mention the attentive, friendly hospitality, is the post-lunch stroll across to the lookout to take in those incredible views.

Bistro Sociale is the showpiece of the Berida Hotel in the Southern Highlands, and what a beautiful showpiece it is. As you enter through the double doors there is a lounge area with fireplace to your left and the main bar to your right. The restaurant is divided into three separate dining spaces, creating a sense of intimacy and different mood in each area. Floor-to-ceiling windows allow natural light to flood in and tables are set comfortably apart. It all feels like a throwback to a bygone era, with period-style chandeliers and white tablecloths completing the high society vibe.

Roadside motel restaurants have historically been a gamble. A continental breakfast with a side of watery scrambled eggs or dinner of tough rump steak, frozen veg and mass-produced peppercorn gravy – top-quality cuisine has not typically been the norm. However, we're pleased to report that Blaq, at the recently refurbished Kyah Hotel in Blackheath, is far from the stereotype and downright delightful to boot.

At EXP. in Pokolbin village, it is immediately clear from casting an eye over the parchment paper menu that you are in wine country: Usher Tinkler prosecco, Brookenwood semillon and Vinden Estate shiraz nouveau jump out as nearby neighbours, and the eats take a similar tack. Binnie beef comes from a short drive up the road at Mirannie Station and Mother fungus comes from a quick hop to Taree. This chic outfit exemplifies a new wave of dining in the Hunter, focused uncompromisingly on quality, warmth and a locavore mindset. After all, with all of this abundance, from wine to lovingly tended vegetables and sustainably raised livestock, why would they look anywhere else? 

Head chef Shayne Mansfield is a conceptual tightrope walker, dauntlessly dancing between extremes of texture and aroma, smoke and soil, sea and sky. The ocean laps against the farmyard with dishes that marry flavours usually restrained to their respective elements. In each complex dish, every element is absolutely essential to balance the overall taste, without the plate feeling like a hat on a hat. And while this kind of cooking might intimidate some diners, it's a reminder that food shouldn’t always be polite. At Flotilla it’s loud, eccentric, playful and risk-taking in a way that is surprisingly liberating – and couldn’t we all use a little more of that in our lives?

At this smart but not stuffy Italian joint taking pride of place on the newly rejuvenated main drag of the city, Hunter Street, co-owners Mike Portley and Stephanie Wells have clearly thought their gambit through. They've created a venue that can attract out-of-towners to Newcastle’s dining revolution while also offering locals a mid-priced fave they can rely on week after week. Portley cut his teeth as a chef at Porteño, and his menu features a similar flare for playing fast and loose with Mediterranean influences, all the while leaning hard into the world-class seafood, grass-raised meat and heirloom veggies that can be found a mere stone’s throw from town.

Time Out’s People’s Choice Awards this year invited readers to select their favourite restaurant, bar, pub and café, and the votes are in.