November 12, 2025 — 5:00am
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There must be some interesting conversations going on at Tourism Australia right now.
The Kiwis have snaked us. Australia had the chance to attract Michelin, the world-renowned restaurant guide, to review our local dining scene, to rate our talent with the same parameters as the greats of the world, and we passed it up. Too expensive.
The New Zealand government is paying Michelin $5.5 million for the privilege of its coverage.Getty Images
And then last week, New Zealand announced it had taken the plunge. The first Michelin New Zealand guide will be published in mid-2026. Those feted stars, understood and revered worldwide, will be awarded to Kiwi restaurants, not Australian ones.
This honour doesn’t come cheap. Long ago Michelin altered its business model to a “pay to play” system, in which national tourism boards pay large amounts of money for the guide’s reviewers to arrive on its shores and hand out stars and bibs gourmand.
The New Zealand government is paying Michelin $NZ6.3 million ($5.5 million) for the privilege of its coverage, and the associated worldwide attention.
Anyone scoffing at this decision – who’s going to give a Michelin star to fush and chups bro? – obviously hasn’t dined in New Zealand for a while. Because the food scene across the ditch is crackling along.
Mapu Test Kitchen in Lyttelton near Christchurch, one of New Zealand’s culinary leading lights.
From Auckland to Wellington, Christchurch to Queenstown, from mountain-top restaurants to hole-in-the-wall wine bars, from avant-garde fine-diners to neighbourhood bistros, New Zealand has some seriously great places to eat. And pretty soon, the culinary world will know it.
So has Tourism Australia stuffed up? As reported in the AFR last week, the organisation has been in discussions with Michelin since 2016, and had progressed to the point that the famous French tyre company had already sent inspectors to our restaurants.
Ultimately, however, Tourism Australia baulked at the $17.3 million it would have to pay (plus another $20 million or so from state governments) for five years of coverage, and passed on the opportunity.
Across the ditch meanwhile, Tourism New Zealand has historically been a savvy organisation. Campaigns such as “100% Pure New Zealand” have been lasting and highly successful – even if its recent effort, “Everyone Must Go!” was a bit of a turkey.
Shelling out for Michelin seems like a reasonable idea. New Zealand already has a restaurant review system – Cuisine Magazine, which awards hats instead of stars – but the rest of the world has no idea what that means, and even if they did, they’re unlikely to take it very seriously.
Give a restaurant a Michelin star or two, however, and all of a sudden the culinary-obsessed travellers of the world take notice. What’s going on in New Zealand?
No one will ask that of Australia. At least, not for now. Tourism Australia seems content to go with the classic cliches – the kangaroos and koalas, Uluru and Aussie charm – in its campaigns to attract overseas visitors, rather than try to gain our culinary scene recognition on the world stage.
Time will tell the wisdom in that. No doubt the attention on New Zealand next year will be closely monitored.
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Though, that’s not to say Michelin is necessarily desirable. There’s the cost, public money going to a private, foreign company. And there are all sorts of knock-on effects of the guide’s arrival, not least that it breeds swags of “Michelin chefs” and “Michelin restaurants”, places that give up originality or distinct local atmosphere in favour of obeying the Michelin rules to attract stars.
If that’s anything like the “50 Best-ification” going on in fine-dining restaurants around the world – that is, restaurants focused on making the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, insisting on never-ending degustation menus of gastronomic trickery that tell meandering stories about the chef’s personal history and culinary philosophy – then maybe Michelin would not be a good thing for our cultural landscape.
There are other options, too. If Australia isn’t going to shell out $17 million for Michelin, then it could inject money into the home-grown review system we already have: the hats and reviews provided by the Good Food Guide.
I will admit a vested interest here: I write occasional reviews for the Guide, which is owned by the same masthead that publishes these columns. I would like to see it thrive.
Still, if Tourism Australia isn’t interested in having an Australian Michelin guide, why not take a fraction of that money and help make Good Food’s hat system national? Help promote the awards and the reviews we already have in overseas markets as something valuable and useful to foreign visitors?
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And if you’re scoffing at this notion, too – who’s gonna be interested in meat pies and lammos, mate? – then you haven’t dined out in Australia recently either. We have some genuinely great restaurants in this country, original, home-grown products that can hold their own with all the Michelin stars out there.
Places like Saint Peter, Quay and Sixpenny in Sydney, Brae in Birragurra, Barragunda and Tedesca Osteria in the Mornington Peninsula, Chauncy in Heathcote, Amaru in Melbourne, the Agrarian Kitchen in Tassie, Arkhe in Adelaide, and many, many more that I don’t have space to name: these restaurants deserve global recognition.
And cashed-up, culture-savvy foreign tourists will pay good money to eat at these establishments when they understand their value – not to mention pay good money for hotels and other meals and experiences while they’re here.
But New Zealand has got the jump on us. You have to wonder how that’s being received.
Agree? Disagree? Share your own air travel tips and advice at travellerletters@traveller.com.au. We’ll publish a selection of the most interesting and useful responses, or post a comment below.
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Ben Groundwater is a Sydney-based travel writer, columnist, broadcaster, author and occasional tour guide with more than 25 years’ experience in media, and a lifetime of experience traversing the globe. He specialises in food and wine – writing about it, as well as consuming it – and at any given moment in time Ben is probably thinking about either ramen in Tokyo, pintxos in San Sebastian, or carbonara in Rome. Follow him on Instagram @bengroundwaterConnect via email.From our partners