By Christine Salins

Once a year, the country's leading chefs and restaurateurs gather to find out who got gongs in the Good Food Guide. While it's an honour to being listed, the real glory goes to those who have scored a hat. One hat is cool (or should that be hot?), two hats even better, and three hats puts you right on top in the pecking order.

It's the most coveted accolade of all, other than being named best restaurant. Only seven restaurants earned three hats in the 2008 Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide, including its restaurant of the year, Tetsuya's – which, incidentally, is ranked in the top five of the world's restaurants by the Restaurant Magazine (London).

Claude's Restaurant


Bécasse Restaurant
Fourteen Sydney restaurants were awarded two hats in the 2008 Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide and 36 city restaurants and 23 regional restaurants earned one hat. Melbourne has its equivalent in The Age Good Food Guide, with only one restaurant, Jacques Reymond, receiving three hats in the 2008 edition.

Brisbane has its own version too, with the brisbanetimes.com.au Good Food Guide launched in 2008 by Fairfax Media, co-publishers of the Sydney and Melbourne restaurant bibles. Four restaurants were awarded two hats; none made the cut for three.

Chef's hats are the Michelin stars of the Australian hospitality industry (Michelin being the make-or-break guide to restaurants in Europe and Britain). But although we like doing things our way on this side of the equator, we sometimes call a chef's hat a toque (pronounced “tock”), drawing on the French term for a chef's tall white hat.

Sydney Good Food Guide co-authors Simon Thomsen and Joanna Savill head a team of reviewers who dine anonymously. Thomsen says the restaurants are scored out of 20 following a strict criteria – ten points for food, five for service, three for ambience and two for “a sprinkling of magic, be it a great location, stunning service, or food that was sublime beyond belief”.

A restaurant has to score at least 12 points to be included in the guide, and 14.5 points to earn a chef's hat. Sixteen or 17 points earns two hats; 18, 19 or 20 points earns three hats. There are various other industry awards and reviews, including the Australian Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide, and the Restaurant & Catering Association awards. But none can make or break a business's bottom line like chef's hats do.

An indication of how seriously the industry takes its chef's hats is the controversy that often surrounds them. Losing a hat can cause a stir, big time. Matt Moran has described the demotion of his Sydney restaurant, Aria, in 2005 from two hats to one as being "like 10 kicks to the head". Viewers of the SBS documentary series Heat in the Kitchen will remember the pain he went through to win back his second hat.

Gaining a hat can propel a chef's career. Danks Street Depot had been open for less than a year when it was named as Sydney's best café. Jared Ingersoll got the dates mixed up and didn't even go to the award ceremony; the first he knew about it was when customers came knocking on his door the next morning. "...That changed things very quickly. It made us really busy but it also made us realize that if you get recognition like that, people come with really huge expectations."

Indeed, some restaurateurs have been heard to say they're quite satisfied with one hat, because it gives them prestige and credibility but two or three hats might make people think they are out of reach. (You can bet they wouldn't hand the hats back though.)

In fact, while there is often a significant price difference between a one-hat and a three-hat restaurant, the difference between two hats and three hats is often marginal. Nor is a three-hatted restaurant necessarily more expensive. The 2008 Sydney guide puts main dishes at the three-hatted Bilson's at $45, for example, while the two-hatted Rockpool has mains at $50 and the two-hatted Aria has mains from $44 to $52. Expect to pay from around $18 to $35 at a one-hat restaurant.

Regardless of how much value a diner places on a chef's hat, there's no doubt it helps raise the bar for restaurants. And that can only be a good thing for diners.